Map of the Városliget, 2007 (Budapest's City Park), Hungary. Wikicommons/ e:Benutzer:Devil_m25. Some rights reserved.Since the Hungarian left’s post-2010 disintegration into fragmented multi-parties and loss of popularity, social initiatives have become the most trustworthy form of bottom-up politics. One after another, the second electoral defeat in 2014, in addition to the Internet tax demonstrations seemed to suggest that left-liberal parties had completely lost the initiative. At the same time it was also obvious, that none of the frequently rival civil protest groups would be capable of providing an institutionalized alternative to the government. Since then, on certain issues, occasional coalitions between parties and radical NGOs have come into existence, such as the protection of the eco-model farm in Kishantos, or the campaign around the significant environment and field reconstruction of the Városliget ( Budapest’s City Park).
The civil society organiser is typically against party politics, preferring membership of a quasi-elite team. Additionally, due to the general distrust of organised political actors, many radical NGOs are unwilling to get involved with elected political parties, which in contrast aim to organize an electoral majority and represent millions of citizens. Presumably the political machinations of parties is not something the left-liberal activist would like to be associated with. Nevertheless, this is not only a matter of taste, politically, since it has a significant impact on the politics of the opposition and also on the perpetuation of the Orbán-regime.
Inherently left-liberal activist networks are not willing to confine themselves to the political action patterns of the parties. Their repertoire of action is richer. Recently, for example, there was a debate between political experts, lawyers and activists over the spring teachers’ strike, on whether the staff walkout was civil disobedience or not. The latter politics increasingly has an expanding supporter community, which in addition goes to show that leftist-liberal, Budapest-based activist networks, as against its “illiberal” state and/or government equivalent, are reliant on the catalytic strength and effectiveness of a small-group-based, feasibly organized and focused civil disobedience, as well as direct actions capable of mobilizing more people.
