TOL Hungary

Playing the Referendum Game

January 31st, 2008 by robertnemeth

The permanent campaign in Hungary goes on. This time, parties are campaigning for a referendum that will take place on March 9th. The topic: co-payment and tuition fee.

According to the polls, the majority of those who will attend the referendum will vote for the abolition of these fees. The opposition that initiated this referendum says: these fees are just for sacking the people. The government says: without this money, doctors, hospitals and universities will go bankrupt since there is no money in the budget to compensate them.

But another aspect is maybe even more interesting. Some say that this referendum is still about the remains of the Kádár-system, of the socialism. They say that these fees make people finally know that nothing is for free. As many surveys show, Hungarians are usually not that much aware of the fact that what is free is paid from taxes.

Furthermore, the referendum plans caused a new trend: people have never submitted so many referendum initiatives as these days (according to Hungarian laws, questions have to be authorized by the National Election Committee). Some of them wanted to keep the above mentioned fees, but there were many absurd ones as well, for instance the one that wanted free beer to everyone.

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