The new Rózsadomb is dripping. The former "proles" are increasingly voting for Fidesz. The results of last weekend's municipal elections in Budapest once again confirm all of this.
But what happened? Continuing the winning streak that has been going on for weeks and months, the governing parties won two out of three. And all this in Budapest, which of course is considered an opposition stronghold. One in Újbuda, one in Zugló. Until now, each district has been represented by an opposition politician in the district boards.
In the only district that the left was still able to hold, in 2019 they still won by 55.85:40.52; now the difference has decreased to 52:48. The scissors narrowed by 11 percentage points. The other XI. In the district district, Fidesz-KDNP turned from 36.67-54:05 to 51.67:41.34. This is quite massive: a change of more than 27 percentage points. The situation is similar in Zugló: after a 48.11:33.15 victory for the opposition, the ruling parties now won by 40.16:36.6. Improved by more than 18 percentage points.
However, the results are even more interesting if we look at the districts in which this happened. The only opposition victory took place in the Sasad-Gazdagrét region, but the district also includes a small part of Sas-hegy, which is actually the so-called "Mountain" edge. Sasad is traditionally left-wing, and it was also called the "communist Rose Hill". Most bourgeois families lived on the real Rózsadomb (and next to it in Pasarét, Hűvösvölgy, etc.). The luckier ones who were not taken to Recsk or the Gulag could stay in their former family villas. Of course, not all of it, but at least a part of it, or at least in the servant's room, after the whole house was nationalized by the communists. Rent had to be paid to the IKV (Real Estate Management Company), but at least they were not evicted. And because these bourgeois, conservative, gentlemanly people and their descendants studied, worked, and were diligent, they lived and prospered modestly under communism as well. And when the coffers ran out in the 1980s and the state started privatizing rental apartments at low prices, they had enough money to somehow buy them. They bought back the apartment that was taken from their family a few decades earlier. Good, is not it?
But the point is that they remained deep-rooted right-wingers, and as soon as they were free to choose, they did so. Thus, in 1994, the right wing was able to win two mandates in the Hegyvidék-Hűvösvölgy-Pasarét-Rózsadomb area, while the entire country was covered in red. These constituencies now have left-wing representatives. Because new villas and residential parks have since been built in these areas, where mainly the nouveau riche post-communist, privatizing entrepreneurs and their children have moved in. (Of course not exclusively, but mostly.) II. In the outer part of the district, the so-called in II/A, Pesthidegkút, Adyliget, etc. this is definitely the feature. (For example, the infamous villa of Bence Tordai is also here.) Sasad, on the other hand, unlike Rózsadomb or Pasarét, used to be an uninhabited area, or there were vineyards and orchards, and during the urbanization, from the first minute, the cadres bought plots and built here. Gazdagrét, as a housing estate, is clearly the last great reminder of Hungary in Kádár. Although I would like to note that the governing parties achieved a much better result in Gazdasgrét than in Sasa. So much so that they won in the two constituencies in Hoságrét, if only by a few votes! ("The new Rózsadomb is coming.") Sasad's part of the family house was brought by the left, as could be expected in light of the above.
However, the real downer was the Sasad-liget residential park and its surroundings for the governing parties: the left won here by almost 2/3. We are talking about a newly built housing estate, with mostly young families with post-communist-liberal roots who have just moved in, who of course have all taken up the CSOK, there is the state-subsidized car in the garage, they are enjoying the tax discount... but "dirty Fidesz", "kill Orbán" , O1G, etc….and they voted down the candidate of the moment. So the brainwashing is totally successful. During the campaign, they slammed the door on the government party activists and sent them humbly to hell. In the part belonging to the mountainous region, the governing parties won - so this part has not yet become so commoditized, in fact, the XII. In the district, in the actual Hegyvidék, even the mayor is from Fidesz (Zoltán Pokorni), but Miklós Hajnal, the "dirty Fideszézó", won the parliamentary election. And at the rate Pokorni allows the construction of residential parks in the district, they may bring money to the municipality in the short term, but in the medium term they will also bring "intellectual prolika" (the definition of the wording can be found in my Facebook post linked in the introduction) and the next municipal election you might even lose it.
The full article of Pesti Srácok can be read here.
Author: Zsolt Jeszenszky
Photo: Csaba Jászai
