Memory may deceive many, but the Internet does not forget. Written by Géza Sebestyén.
In the past 20 years, there were two governments under which the financial situation of Hungarians deteriorated dramatically. But fortunately, there were also governments that did a lot to eradicate poverty.
The most important task of a government is to improve the living conditions and financial situation of citizens. Since the beginning of 2004, Hungary has had eight governments. Of these, four performed particularly poorly in terms of the above objective function, while four provided excellent performance.
The figure below shows how the frequency of searches for the word "aid" has developed in Hungary since the beginning of 2004. In the last months of the Medgyessy government, the demand for aid was shockingly high. These values are especially amazing in light of the fact that this government won the election with the exact promise that they can live even better than what the first Orbán government achieved.
Photo: Google Trends
In addition, 2004 was a particularly successful year for the world economy, the global GDP rose by 5 percent, unemployment showed a decreasing trend in the countries of the world, international FDI investments and the profits of American companies also increased significantly. Not to mention that the popularity of the Internet and the volume of online searches were much lower then than they are today. Although the peaks of searches under the first Gyurcsány government were lower than under the Medgyessy government, the value of the indicator was still very high. Under the second Gyurcsány government, the trend was already on the rise. The 2009 values can still be partially justified by the global economic crisis, less so by the fact that the number of searches started to rise in our country in 2007.
Although today the Bajna government has a kind of expert, crisis management nimbus, if we look at the evolution of poverty, the graph can raise strong doubts in us as to how effective and successful this roughly one year was. The peak of searches for the word "help" is precisely in the second half of the Bajna cycle.
However, during the first two Orbán governments after 2010 (officially the second and third), the number of searches already showed a continuous and clear downward trend. In Hungarian, it was possible to improve the situation of the poor in an effective way. And by the end of the second examined cycle, the average value of the examined indicator was clearly lower than at any time before.
The two biggest successes of the fourth Orbán government were that the demand for aid did not rise as high during the period of the COVID crisis as it did before 2010, and that the solution to this crisis was also much faster than in 2008-09 - fall.
In the end, the fifth Orbán government had no choice but to maintain the results achieved by previous centre-right governments. Based on the last 10 years or so - which is typically covered by the average person's memory - it really does not seem like a special achievement where the number of searches is now.
It's a bit like the Chicago Bulls' six championships from 1991-1998. After a while, fans began to believe that there was something special in the air of the city, and that you didn't need coach Phil Jackson or Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen to win rings. However, history has shown that the old guard knew something that no one else did. Despite the truly brilliant Derrick Rose, Jimmy Butler, who later played in the finals twice with the Miami Heat, or the two-time All-Star, Olympic gold medalist and two-time sack champion Zach LaVine, the team's best result was a participation in the Eastern Conference Finals in 2011. where the Miami Heat beat them 4-1.
In the same way, the achievements of the fifth Orbán government in the field of combating poverty look normal only when compared to the previous Orbán governments. This is the consequence of a successful economic policy gaining the trust of voters one after the other; the memory of the alternative fades more and more. However, the Internet and searches do not forget. Thus, in such a case, it is always worthwhile to refresh our own personal memories with the help of these.
The author is an associate professor at the Corvinus University of Budapest, head of the MCC Economic Policy Workshop.
Featured image: Noémi Bruzák / MTI
