Vacationing Hungarians Skip Election

The nation’s Socialists lost their bid for a political comeback Sunday when voters killed a referendum on direct presidential elections by failing to go to the polls.

Coming at the height of summer vacation season and on a brilliantly sunny day with temperatures in the 90s, the issue opposed by Hungary’s main political parties had been considered to have little chance of passage.

Less than 14% of the country’s 7.8 million eligible voters cast their ballots on whether the head of state should be popularly elected. That turnout was far short of the 50% needed for validation, although a solid majority of those who did show up voted in favor of direct elections.

With 80% of the vote counted by midnight, 86% had supported direct elections.

The center-right governing coalition under Prime Minister Jozsef Antall had opposed holding a direct presidential election, arguing that another campaign would be too time-consuming and costly.

The governing Hungarian Democratic Forum and the main opposition force, the Alliance of Free Democrats, were in unusual agreement on the issue, apparently joining forces to prevent the Socialists--formerly the Communists--from gaining the prestigious, though largely ceremonial office of the presidency.

A recent public opinion poll showed former Prime Minister Miklos Nemeth, a Socialist reformer, to be the most popular politician in Hungary, trailed by his successor, Antall.

Nemeth and Hungarian Socialist Party Chairman Gyula Horn, the former foreign minister, were considered likely candidates and potential winners in the event voters were asked to choose the president.

While the Socialists hold less than 10% of the seats in Parliament, individual members like Nemeth and Horn, who spearheaded Hungary’s peaceful “revolution from above” to oust hard-line communism, remain respected and influential figures in the eyes of voters.

Hungarians had endorsed the idea of direct elections for the presidency in a November referendum, although they agreed to put off the vote until after the parliamentary ballot conducted in March and April.

But once the Parliament was seated in May, the Forum and the Free Democrats orchestrated a behind-the-scenes deal to install writer Arpad Goncz as interim president and change the constitution to give Parliament the right to appoint the head of state in the future.

Goncz, a Free Democrat, enjoys support across party lines because of his role in the 1956 Hungarian uprising against communism, for which he was jailed by the Communists for six years. Goncz is expected to be named official head of state, now that the bid for popular election has failed.

Socialist and independent members of Parliament pushed for Sunday’s referendum, in the hopes that the public would demand that it be allowed to choose the president.

An independent member of Parliament, Zoltan Kiraly, organized the collection of 170,000 signatures, forcing the issue to a public referendum.

Kiraly had been considered a contender. But after being accused of pursuing personal ambitions to be president in pressing for the referendum, Kiraly told Parliament last month that he would not run if voters chose to have direct elections.