open Democracy News Analysis - Democracy bites, Tom Burgis - Comments

beabona on "Democracy bites"

beabona — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 23:39:52 +0000

What happened to the site again?? On Dec.8.I saw OD website and the winner of the Bad Dem.Award for October 2006 was Ferenc Gyurcsany leading with 4% ahead of the Thai General.Now it shows different thing: instead of Gyurcsany no winner but the explanations...spoiled vote...?? Who wants to erase the name of Gyurcsany from your list by all means?

atus3 on "Democracy bites"

atus3 — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 17:14:10 +0000

Dear oD,

- you failed to take into account the many requests to include Gyurcsany into the candidates for Bad Democrat of the Year,

- you did nothing to prevent future automated votes. Your developers must have heard of Captchas?!?

Because of the above, democracy loses and dictators win. E.g. all October Bad Democrat nominees - including Gyurcsany, the most probable winner - rejoice because of the canceled vote; all hackers are relieved because you are an easy target again.

WHY?

smoke_bellew on "Democracy bites"

smoke_bellew — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 11:17:51 +0000

It seems obvious that Ferenc Gyurcsany, prime minister of Hungary should become the 12th member of this illustrious :) group. The reason for that, at least for me, is not that he has lied, since he was not alone. One person, even the prime minister, cannot maintain a system based on lies without help from other people. The lies could have only been believed by the electorate of Hungary if the fellow party members and members of his government including those not delegated by the Socialist Party but by the so-called Free Democrats did not went along with him in order to cover up what is going in Hungary. The real reason, why I cast my vote on him, is that as a modern Richard the Third he created an environment in Hungary where now lying and lies seem morally superior to truth and honesty. The real problem is that there was not one member of his party, after hearing his admittance of lying stood up and said that this is 'more than I've bargained for when I became an elected meber of the parliament, when I was sworn in at the opening session of the parliament I swore to protect and serve the people of Hungary and not to be loyal to the prime minister at all costs'. The prime ministers and his fellow lying associates real fault is that the ones who dare to whisper the truth are despised and the shouting liars are applauded. So not his lies are the real problem but the aftermath.

flaszlo on "Democracy bites"

flaszlo — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 20:50:23 +0000

Welcome to the postcommunist democracy ruled by communist secret services! The hungarian writer S�ndor M�rai said once: "The worst thing in the communism is not the communism itself, but the time after it." Gyurcs�ny is just the leader at the moment, but the real power is not in his hands. If he gets the Bad Democracy award of the year, what I hope seriously, the whole system behind him will be outpointed. Some people say that the communists have lost the cold war, but they have won the peace which came after.

Thats the unwilled hungarian reality.

Flacz

JoPolgar on "Democracy bites"

JoPolgar — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 16:08:39 +0000

I strogly suggest that at least a "honorary" award should be designated to Mr. Gyurcsany. His terribble and aggressive acts against the basic priciples of democracy make him perfectly eligible for this "award".

Diffeomorphism on "Democracy bites"

Diffeomorphism — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 15:18:17 +0000

I would also like the winning award be passed to Mr. Gyurcsany because of the following reason.

The European Union has been pride of respecting and promoting human rights and democracy all over the world. The fact, that such things can take place in an EU member state ( a blatant liar as prime minister, brutal measures against the demonstrants, including using of rubber bullets, tear gas and cobra stick ) can by no means be overestimated.

If we do not hold against this tendency, we may find ourselves in an EU, where this " exception" or " anomaly " will be THE common, every-day practice.

Do we really want that ?

beabona on "Democracy bites"

beabona — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 22:44:57 +0000

I vote for Gyurcs�ny to win the Bad Democracy Award because he's manipulating everything in order to maintain their political power by all means. Whatever becomes inconvenient for them they make a secrecy of it immediately for at least 30, but rather 80 years.

sky on "Democracy bites"

sky — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 12:34:34 +0000

I would fill the gap with Ferenc Gyurcsany because Sonthi Boonyaratkalin was given nominations by Hungarian voters from Hungarian addresses as the article claims.

tcp_1 on "Democracy bites"

tcp_1 — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 09:14:29 +0000

I vote the wild card for the pro-Gyurcs�ny hackers.

It is not just that they destroyed the oD poll. They also demonstrated a profound lack of the essential democratic virtue of moderation. If, at every attack in the public space of ideas, paranoia takes hold and justifies behaviour outside the norms, democracy really suffers. Indeed, it cannot survive this attitude.

The Hungarian hackers are the essence of the bad democrat: they make the pretense of democracy, but possess not of the virtues that sustain it.

Democracy bites, Tom Burgis

Mon, 30 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000

On Monday 23 October 2006, hours before a mixture of protest and remembrance marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Hungarian uprising against Soviet rule, a sophisticated assault on openDemocracy's server brought the site to its knees.

Incensed by the nomination of Ferenc Gyurcsány as a candidate for our monthly Bad Democracy award, some enterprising soul using a Hungarian internet address effected what is known as a "denial of service" attack. This, as its name suggests, is ruinous, and deprived our voracious readers of intellectual stimulation for far longer than is healthy.

But the hacker was not alone in his vexation at the sight of the Hungarian prime minister taking his place in our ignominious poll alongside despots, rabble-rousers and tough guys.

Within hours of Gyurcsány's nomination as one of the six leaders who had done the most damage to democracy in September, a torrent of online votes, comments and ire had begun to flow.

Don't miss the background to our prestigious Bad Democracy awards:

Introduction

Nominations

Winner of the first award: Silvio Berlusconi

Winner of the second award: John Howard

Winner of the third award: George W Bush

Winner of the fourth award: Meles Zenawi

Winner of the fifth award: Abu Laban

Winner of the sixth award: Alexander Lukashenko

Winner of the seventh award: Lee Hsien Loong

Winner of the eighth award: Kim Jong Il

Winner of the ninth award: the Israeli Defence Forces

Winner of the tenth award: The G8

Winner of the eleventh award: Rupert Murdoch

The oD Today blog groaned with fierce debate about whether the prime minister should be forced from office after being recorded admitting to a party meeting that he had lied to the electorate. "Ferenc Gyurcsány dirty pig kommunistic dictator!" screeched one poster; "Gyurcsány ... is our last chance, the guarantee for better life," retorted another; "please be so generous to help me a little financially to pay my gas bill," pleaded a third.

As demonstrations demanding Gyurscány's resignation - attended by a melange of affronted citizens, conservatives and hooligans - turned violent, the Bad Democracy award was being roundly traduced in sections of the Hungarian press, obliging our ranks of telegenic spokespeople to appear on Hungarian news bulletins to fight our corner.

One Budapest correspondent observed: "Hungarians take it very seriously when a foreign organisation with a very serious-sounding title makes a pronouncement about Hungary or a prominent Hungarian.

"Politics here is a zero-sum game - even more so than in most western democracies - and these things get seized upon."

Over four weeks, well over 3 million votes were cast, split roughly equally between the embattled premier and the Thai general (Sonthi Boonyaratkalin) who led the bloodless coup on 19 September. The vast majority were of Hungarian origin.

Our technicians detected an overwhelming stench of foul play - a handful of addresses had bombarded the poll.

Who, then, should be named as the twelfth and final candidate to go forward to our Bad Democrat of the Year award?

Faced with similar electoral impasses in recent years, authorities across the globe have resorted to some pretty ingenious political manoeuvres - hanging chads in Florida, unholy coalitions in Poland, cannibalism in Congo.

While the latter option was briefly mooted, there can only be one outcome. As the machinations of our unknown saboteurs forced voting to be suspended, we have no choice but to declare the result void.

Gyurcsány was undoubtedly a worthy candidate and was marginally ahead before the polling system came crashing down. The vitriol his nomination unleashed forms a small part of the debate that is tearing at the fabric of Hungary, where the growing pains of a young democracy are exacerbated by old wounds inflicted under Soviet rule.

That leaves a hole in the list of rogues, chosen by our readers over the past year, from which you will in December be able to select the year's most heinous autocrat. The gap will be filled by a wild-card, by which we mean the candidate whose nomination is accompanied by the most compelling argument (or the largest donation to openDemocracy's Swiss bank account).

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