Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0162/01628.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 19KB | 365 lines

$Unique_ID{COW01628}
$Pretitle{365}
$Title{Hungary
The Parliament of the Republic of Hungary}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Embassy of Hungary, Washington DC}
$Affiliation{Embassy of Hungary, Washington DC}
$Subject{parliament
parliamentary
mps
hungarian
parties
committees
new
party
factions
individual}
$Date{1990}
$Log{Table 4.*0162801.tab
Table 5.*0162802.tab
Table 6.*0162803.tab
}
Country:     Hungary
Book:        Hungarian-US relations
Author:      Embassy of Hungary, Washington DC
Affiliation: Embassy of Hungary, Washington DC
Date:        1990

The Parliament of the Republic of Hungary

Parliamentary republic

     Parliamentarism in Hungary can boast traditions which stretch back many
years. Popular representation in the civil sense was first introduced into the
country under laws passed during the 1848 War of Independence. The 1990
elections, which marked the return of a multi-party democracy, were also the
34th time voters went to the polls in Hungarian legal history.

     In 1989-1990, the evolution of Hungarian society and of the Hungarian
state, which came to an abrupt end in 1948-49, once again resumed its own
natural course. With the new Constitution proclaimed on October 23, 1989-this
date became the country's new national day-the Republic of Hungary assumed a
genuinely European form of government as an independent, democratic,
law-governed state. This was, in fact, a return to the spirit of Act I (1946)
on republican satehood, and revived the idea of the distribution of power.

     The constitutional relationship between the three main participants in
the administrative system-the President of the Republic, Parliament, and the
Government-is determined by the classic democratic principle of checks and
balances between the various branches of power. In Hungary, the parliamentary
rights of dissolution, adjournment and veto indicate the extra weight the
legislative branch has in the constitutional system. The institution of the
constructive no-confidence motion is a special aspect of the Hungarian form of
government, a feature that makes for stable administration over long periods.

Single-chamber Parliament

     Up to 1945, the Hungarian Parliament consisted of two chambers: the House
of Representatives and the Upper House. Both in its structure and appointment,
the magnificent building in Budapest that is home to the parliamentary
sessions still reflects the original aim of providing facilities for two
chambers. However, since 1945, the Hungarian Parliament has been a unicameral
institution and the recent, sweeping reforms in the country have done nothing
to change that. In March and April, 1990, Hungary's single-chamber parliament
was elected for a term of four years. It has 386 members, 176 of whom won
their mandates as candidates in individual constituencies, 152 were elected on
the basis of county and Budapest lists (20 constituencies in all), and 58
selected from the national party list on the basis of a nationwide summary of
surplus votes. Regardless of the way they won their seats, each member of
Parliament has exactly the same rights and obligations.

Parliamentary elections: rules and procedures

     The law on parliamentary elections (Law 34, 1989) provides for a rather
complicated, mixed electoral system, with individual constituencies fielding
individual candidates on a democratic basis, and with party lists. As the name
implies, these lists are reserve for parties, and the voter has to choose the
party of his preference. In both cases, an absolute majority of votes is
required to secure a seat. In a nutshell then, in this dual, two-vote system,
the elector casts one vote in support of the individual representative he
favours in a given constituency, and with his other ballot, supports the party
of his choice.

     To be nominated in an individual constituency, a candidate needs a total
of at least 750 recommendation slips signed by registered voters in that
district. Similarly, a party is required to collect a minimum of 750
signatures before it may put up its own list of candidates. To put up a
regional list, a party must have fielded candidates in at least a quarter of
the individual constituencies, and in no circumstances fewer than two
individual constituencies. In order to put up its own national list, a party
must have met the conditions for compiling a minimum of seven regional lists.

     The Electoral Act passed in 1989 was intended as a law of political
transition reflecting social realities, and this is why it introduced the
mixed system. In actual fact, the original idea of the dual voting system
thought up at the National Round Table did not live up to expectations. The
vast majority of voters favoured the new large parties, which apparently
inspired them with more confidence, on both their voting slips. This clearly
demonstrated that personalities-all 1,623 of them, or nine per
constituency-were of secondary consideration.

     The elections that took place in the spring of 1990 were clearly
multi-party elections; they both gave rise to, and legitimized, a multi-party
system.

The composition of Parliament

     The dimensions of the change in regime are very clearly indicated by the
number of new faces the spring elections gave to Parliament. As many as 95.6
per cent of the mandates went to new MPs, with only 17 MPs managing to hold
onto their seats. Most of these were from the former opposition groups or
were independent. A good many people who were earlier persecuted or sentenced
to prison terms on account of their democratic opposition stand, now gained
seats in Parliament.

     Today, Parliament is overwhelmingly composed of arts graduates. The
largest single group of mandate-holders is made up of lawyers. The typical
Hungarian MP is 46 and male. Women hold only 7.25 per cent of the seats. The
general shift in the composition of Parliament seems to have been towards the
"conscript father" type of representative, and reflects a special appreciation
of professionalism.

     The most important aspect of the change is that Hungary's Parliament once
again stands for a multi-party system of political representation, and
expresses the political divisions that exist in the nation. Thanks to the fact
that the law acts as a screen (the 4-per-cent rule for putting up lists, for
instance), only six of the 29 parties which had managed to put up candidates
actually remained in the running. The sound operation of the system of checks
and balances, promoted the formation of a stable government coalition based
firmly on the principle of parliamentary majority. The six strongest parties
received the following percentages of representation in Parliament.

[See Table 4.: The six strongest parties received the following percentages of
representation in Parliament]

     Three of the six parliamentary parties today are new, and the remaining
three figured earlier in Hungarian history. Of the historical parties, voters
seemed to go for those which had been set up on entirely new foundations and
identify with the major political trends in Europe. The three new parties-the
MDF, SZDSZ, and FIDESZ received a total of 55.05% of the votes.

     The political composition of Parliament expresses the electorate's
support for traditional European, and peculiarly Hungarian, political trends.
The Christian national line has many adherents: as a matter of fact, religious
preferences also played a part in the elections. Well represented in
liberalism in its European and national versions. The tendency of voting
against the past kept down the number of seats held by the Left and the Left
Centre.

Parliamentary factions

     In accordance with parliamentary procedure, representatives of parties
that hold mandates and MPs who do not belong to any party may join forces and
act together in permanent groups called factions. At the founding session of
Parliament on May 2 and 3, 1990, the various parties announced that they had
formed their factions, each with at least ten members.