NEWS ANALYSIS : Hungary’s Vote Battle--An East Bloc Preview

On the surface, the national referendum in Hungary this week appeared to be a minor, even trivial, exercise by a fledgling democracy.

But in fact, a tense battle took place between radicals who favor Western-style liberal democracy and vestiges of the renamed, restructured Communist Party struggling to retain power.

Laszlo Hollosi, 25, who is in the small private real estate market here, told an interviewer why he had voted with the radicals.

“To me,” he said, “voting the other way represented the rescue of the Communist Party. We have had enough of that in Hungary.”

In this regard, the referendum provides a kind of preview of electoral tests likely to take place elsewhere in East Europe in this time of sweeping change.

Among the lessons of the referendum, which the radicals won by the slimmest of margins, was the way the beleaguered Communists maneuvered to protect themselves in multi-party competition.

Another was that a large segment of the electorate voted against the reformers. Of the 4.3 million votes cast Sunday, 2.1 million--nearly half--supported the position favored by the Communist Establishment, now the Hungarian Socialist Party.

As multi-party democracy spreads across East Europe, this go-slow element could be a factor in the kind of governments that emerge in the post-Communist period.

Also, some troubling “nationalist” trends surfaced in the Hungarian voting, in the form of veiled anti-Jewish and anti-Gypsy attacks.

The central issue before the voters here was mainly technical: whether the presidential election should take place in January or after parliamentary elections in the spring. But to the Alliance of Free Democrats, which sponsored the referendum after a successful petition drive, the stakes were much higher. And this made their surprising victory that much sweeter.

To the reformers, mostly young people, the most important issue was the survival of the Communists who have ruled Hungary for 40 years. The central figure in this drama was the portly, silver-haired Imre Poszgay. For the crippled Communist regime, Poszgay, 57, represents the last hope for a piece of the action in the emerging multi-party system.

Because he presided over a series of recent party reforms, including the name change, Poszgay has a positive image, even among non-Communists. And for that reason, many Communists had hoped to see him elected to the new position of president before any potential rivals could emerge in next spring’s parliamentary elections.

Even more, they had hoped to have him elected by direct popular vote rather than by Parliament, as dictated by the national constitution of 1946.

Under the reforms engineered by Poszgay, Communist “fundamentalists” were driven from the party leadership. A triumvirate of reformers--Poszgay, Rezso Nyers and Prime Minister Miklos Nemeth--was elected to the Presidium that replaced the Politburo.

But to the radicals, many of the changes were cosmetic, inspired perhaps by a British public relations firm that the party hired to change its image. Among other things, the neon red star that glowed atop the Parliament building was removed.

By agreement between the Communists and a coalition of reform organizations, a direct presidential election was scheduled for late November. The Free Democrats and another organization opposed the agreement and refused to sign it. They argued that a November election would ensure victory for Poszgay, who had acquired a measure of popularity as party reformer.

The radicals launched the petition drive that resulted in the calling of the referendum, and that in turn put off from November until January the presidential election. This, as it turned out, was of great importance.

“Otherwise,” a Hungarian reporter remarked at a press conference Monday with the Socialist Party candidate for president, “it would be President Poszgay talking to us today.”

Still, the postponement was not enough for the radicals. They wanted the presidential election delayed until after the parliamentary election, and they wanted the new president elected by Parliament.

Thus, they identified themselves as the agents of change, and their opponents as advocates of the dreary status quo.

On the other side of the campaign was the government and an important rival opposition group, the Hungarian Democratic Forum. The government did its best to subvert the vote by adding a confusing “explanation” to the ballot that made it seem that a “yes” vote on the critical issue of postponing the election was a vote against the people’s right to elect their leaders.

Government leaders accused the Alliance of Free Democrats of unfairly linking the postponement issue with three other questions on the ballot, including a proposal to dismantle the Workers’ Militia, a force of 60,000 armed men organized after the Soviet suppression of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising.

The government argued that it was necessary to have an elected president for the transition period leading to full democracy “in order to avoid a breakdown in law and order.”

The position taken by the rival Hungarian Democratic Forum, considered the largest and most powerful opposition party, was more complicated and troubling.

Although it has only 20,000 registered members, the Democratic Forum represents a broad political current. Rural-based, anti-intellectual and nationalistic, it is suspicious of the political intrigue in Budapest. Among many of its supporters, there is a feeling that the “rootless cosmopolitans” of Budapest will take the country too far.

The expression “rootless cosmopolitans” is also used derisively to refer to Budapest’s small but influential Jewish population, which has been active in the democratic reform movement. Members of the Democratic Forum are likely to talk about “real Hungarians,” as opposed to Budapest Jews and the large Gypsy population.

Tibor Vidos, campaign director for the referendum, said: “This is one of the historic divisions in Hungary, the urban-based intellectual, often Jewish, versus the populist, nationalistic, rural intellectual.”

Because the Democratic Forum was one of the opposition groups that signed the agreement with the government in favor of an early and direct presidential election, it could not join the Free Democrats in the campaign for the referendum. But instead of being neutral, it encouraged voters to boycott the voting, hoping that turnout would be below the 50% required to make the referendum binding. The turnout was close to 60%.

The Democratic Forum is linked to the government in several other important ways. Although the party has its own candidate for president, many believe that it favors Poszgay. Democratic Forum members speak glowingly of his honesty and leadership. More important, they see him as a link with something familiar, reassuring proof that the future might not be such a brave new world after all.

“Mr. Poszgay is a good politician who has not been compromised,” said Daniel Lanyi, a specialist in international relations with the Democratic Forum. Many Hungarians, he said, are leery of the kind of sweeping reforms proposed by the Free Democrats.

In a remarkably candid press conference in which he conceded defeat on the referendum issue, Poszgay praised the 49% who voted against the radicals. He also said that 40% of the eligible voters chose not to vote, and this showed that “they did not think anything important was at stake.”

As he talked, it was clear that he was counting the two groups, the no-shows and the “no” voters, as potential supporters. In an odd way, the Communist-leader-turned-reformer was coming to terms with democracy.