NEWS ANALYSIS : Unlikely Alliance Could Take Shape in Hungary

A convincing comeback by the Hungarian Socialist Party four years after it was ousted in Eastern Europe’s first free elections has stirred thoughts of a once-unimaginable alliance between a liberal party founded by dissidents and the former Communists who repressed them.

Such a marriage of political convenience would seem to hold little prospect of enduring a full four-year governing term. But Hungarian voters are afflicted by nostalgia for a more stable past and by fatigue from the confrontations that have marred the first post-Communist government.

Socialist candidates won a third of the popular vote in this week’s election, and they lead in enough individual parliamentary races heading into a May 29 runoff to be assured of having the upper hand in forming a new coalition--if not an outright majority that would let them govern alone.

Both the Socialists and the voters’ second choice, the liberal Alliance of Free Democrats, claim to recognize the risks entailed in one-party government by a leadership that has only a slim majority and was empowered largely by a protest vote.

“People didn’t vote for the old regime, they voted against the present government. This is the swing of the pendulum back to the left after moving too far to the right,” said Laszlo Rajk, a leading member of the Free Democrats, a prominent dissident in the 1970s and the son of an anti-Communist activist executed during Hungary’s darkest days of dictatorship.

“The Socialists are going to need a counterbalance, as well as a stamp of approval,” he said. “Hungarians tend to use their votes as a vendetta, and the Socialists don’t want to be the only ones around to be blamed next time.”

Rajk argues that the proposed alliance, though difficult to fathom on an emotional level, would give the Free Democrats influence in defining government policy as well as some control over what personalities and factions within the Socialist Party emerge to take important ministerial posts.

Socialist Party leader Gyula Horn has already appealed for a coalition government, and other party leaders insist there is no reason to fear that they will set back the pace of reform.

“In no way do the Socialists want to turn the clock back,” insisted Imre Szekeres, a Socialist Party vice president likely to be nominated to a key government post.

Former political prisoners, like poet and dramatist Istvan Eorsi, concede that today’s Socialists are a different breed from the party that jailed him after the 1956 anti-Communist revolt and censored his work through most of his lifetime.

“For me, this Socialist Party doesn’t represent the old cadres who I grew to hate, the ones who sent me to prison and hanged my friends,” said the bearded writer who is an influential member of the Free Democrats but describes himself as a “misunderstood Socialist.”

That anti-Communist crusaders such as Rajk and Eorsi see the Socialist resurgence as a natural and not-so-disturbing consequence of this unsettled age is likely to comfort both the confused masses and wary foreign investors who have plunked $7 billion into new business ventures here over the past four years.

Hungary led the post-Communist pack in attracting foreign investment. But that advantage has gradually evaporated as more enticing tax breaks have been offered to investors elsewhere in Eastern Europe and as Hungary’s privatization ground to a halt amid government bureaucracy and corruption. New jobs failed to materialize while the make-work networks of the Communist era were disbanded, leaving 13% of the labor force jobless and many others awaiting layoffs at bankrupt heavy-industry complexes that have yet to be closed.

Coupled with inflation that has ranged from 40% a year to the present 22%, the social welfare disaster turned the population against the present government.

The economic policies of the Free Democrats and the Socialists differ little in print. But the popular groundswell for an easing of the shift to a democratic free-market system is expected to pressure the Socialists to divert more resources to social programs that could hamper their ability to stimulate economic growth.

Whether the Free Democrats agree to form a coalition with the Socialists depends heavily on the results of the second voting round, as the liberal party risks losing those members who avidly oppose the alliance on principle. “Our task now is to prevent the Socialists from getting a landslide victory,” said Gabor Kuncze, the Free Democrats’ candidate for the post of prime minister.

The Free Democrats plan to campaign heartily in the three weeks before the runoff in hopes of collecting enough additional seats to enter coalition talks with the Socialists on a more even footing.

“Otherwise we will be giving them legitimacy and risking defections from our own membership while getting nothing substantial in return,” said Eorsi. “We also have to be very careful not to appear too anti-Socialist, since this is clearly the people’s choice. We’ll have to restrain ourselves and not speak too much about the past.”