“There is nothing sensational here, I will spare liberals and investigative journalists from the ‘big discovery'”, commented the newly elected president of the Union of Vojvodina Hungarians, Balint Pastor, on his Facebook account, on the news that his party will participate in the Belgrade elections in a coalition – with Seselj’s radicals.
Admittedly, it is not about the tandem of SVM and the Serbian Radical Party – they are part of a wider pre-election list, and the pivot of the coalition is, of course, their long-standing strategic partner, the Serbian Progressive Party. However, SVM and radicals on the same platform – this is something really shocking, contrary to how Pastor wanted to interpret this news in public.
The most powerful (and, de facto, the only) party of the Hungarians in Serbia will celebrate its 30th anniversary in June this year. Since 1994, SVM has had its ups and downs. In those, the most difficult times, in the nineties, he was a support for the minority community, although due to his political success he was forced to cooperate with the authorities, but until somewhere around the second decade of this century, he consistently preserved his independence, his ideological premises and his identity.
From Jožef Kasa to Istvan Pastor
The founders of SVM were politicians who were not satisfied with the rigid and intolerant politics of Andras Agošton, the then president of the first Hungarian national party in Yugoslavia, the Democratic Union of Vojvodina Hungarians (DZVM). Immediately in the first elections in which it participated, in 1996, SVM knocked out its “domestic” rival, DZVM, and since then it has dominated the political scene of Vojvodina Hungarians.
At the beginning of its existence, SVM cultivated a moderate national policy, with strong anti-war notes. Instead of Hungarian territorial autonomy, he emphasized personal (cultural) autonomy and the joint struggle for the widest possible autonomy of multicultural Vojvodina. The symbol of this policy was the first president of the party, Ferenc Čubela. Unfortunately, he was killed in a traffic accident in 1995, and the party was taken over by Jožef Kasa, the mayor of Subotica, who was a completely different person compared to his predecessor: brash, impulsive, authoritarian – but he did not make any changes in the party’s policy. He made the right move at the right moment and joined DOS. That was a key moment for the party, which, thanks to its position in post-Milošević Serbia, was able to achieve one of its most important goals: personal autonomy. Admittedly, that minority autonomy in the form of the National Council of the Hungarian National Minority was far from ideal. At that time, in 2002, there was still no law that would precisely define the responsibilities, financing and election of minority self-government, however, the legal framework at that time was sufficient to transfer the founding rights of certain media and cultural institutions to the council and to establish gymnasiums for the talented students. It was a great success for the party, even though it was belittled by many.
Kasa cultivated good relations with civil parties, primarily with the Democratic Party and the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina, but he never succeeded, and actually did not want to, to build more or less normal relations with other Hungarian parties. There was also a lot of personal intolerance among the leaders of those organizations. The consequence was that a large part of the Hungarian electorate was not interested in voting in the elections, and half of those who did participate in the voting, supported the civic option, instead of “their” minority brawlers.
After the biggest election fiasco, in 2007, Kasa resigned, and the party was taken over by Istvan Pastor.
How Orbán’s Fidesz influenced the turn of SVM
The new president really seemed to bring a fresh spirit to the political life of Hungarians. He spoke in a low tone, at a leisurely pace, thoughtfully, always willing to listen even to his political opponents. In addition to his personal charm, all of the above helped him make big changes in a very short time. After 15 years, the three largest Hungarian parties agreed and participated in the elections in one coalition. Pastor himself, as a presidential candidate in 2008, achieved an extremely good result in the elections. He invited long-neglected, critical activists and intellectuals to a conversation. And, most importantly, he declared a progressive policy with the ambition of SVM becoming a regional party that represents the interests of not only the Hungarian community in Belgrade, but all the citizens of Vojvodina. With this gesture, he won the sympathy of the citizens of Vojvodina, the “autonomists” who were disappointed with Čanka and his League, and whom DS or LDP, due to their headquarters in Belgrade, were not convincing enough in their intentions regarding Vojvodina.
The first major test of Pastor’s “perestroika” occurred when Fidesz came to power in Hungary in 2010, adopting a two-thirds majority. The previous policy of the SVM was pragmatic towards the parties of the home country: they adhered to the fact that good relations should be maintained with all the competitors there, because you never know who will seize power the next day. But Fidesz expected the SVM’s complete loyalty, especially after the law on dual citizenship was passed, thanks to which all Vojvodina Hungarians, if they wanted, could become Hungarian citizens, thus obtaining a passport of a European Union country. Under such pressure, SVM abandoned its premise of equal distance and he completely attached himself to Fidesz, taking over the increasingly radical national-populist rhetoric of the Hungarian government.
In the middle of the last decade, SVM found itself in the arms of two authoritarian regimes, Orban’s and Vučić’s, adopting their methods, from suppressing press freedom and banishing critical thought to usurping political and economic power within the community.
The second big turning point was on the home ground when the SNS took power in 2012. SVM has not had good relations with the Democratic Party for a long time, because the Democrats also counted on Hungarian votes, and because of that rivalry, their strategic partnership was not sincere. But, on the other hand, the SNS was not acceptable to the Vojvodina Hungarians in the early stages, because they saw them as disguised radicals, who in the nineties offered the Hungarians sandwiches, so that they would not starve while they were deported to their home country. It took SVM four years and a painstaking marketing offensive to, with the strong support of Fidesz, the new strategic partner and Aleksandar Vučić as leader, to be at least partially accepted in the Hungarian community. The “historical reconciliation” of the two nations also contributed to this, when the presidents of the two countries, Janoš Ader and Tomislav Nikolić, jointly laid a wreath in Čurug, where innocent people of Hungarian and Serbian nationality died during the Second World War.
SVM therefore found itself in the middle of the last decade in the arms of two authoritarian regimes, adopting their methods, from suppressing press freedom and banishing critical thought to usurping all political and economic power within the community. At the same time, SVM did not have the strength, nor the will, to oppose the political pressures from Budapest and Belgrade. In exchange for his comfortable position of being the sole boss in his ever-narrowing port, and sharing the huge amount of money he received from the Hungarian government for various projects, the SVM, with Istvan Pastor at its head, completely rejected the previously declared policy opening and Vojvodina autonomy.
Thus, slowly but surely, SVM slipped into the abyss where this minority party no longer has its own identity and independent politics. Where the only expectation from him is to be fully obedient.
In such circumstances, Balint Pastor took over the party from his late father last year. So far, it is not clear whether anything has fundamentally changed under the new leadership – if we do not count the internal party showdown with Balint’s influential stepmother, Ildika Lovaš, which is certainly an important step in the right direction, but insufficient.
The SVM is in the vise. The coalition list with the radicals is just a symptom of that. Balint Pastor simply had no other choice but to accept the decision of SNS to join the broadest pre-election coalition in Belgrade, in which all “patriotic forces” should participate, without exception. Probably he was not allowed to risk his positions in the municipalities in the north of Vojvodina where also everything depends on SNS.
Of course, that doesn’t justify their unseemly move, but it can at least partially explain it. SVM is no longer an important player even in Subotica, let alone the tip of the scales. During these thirty years, the SVM remained alone on the political scene of Vojvodina Hungarians, of whom there are half as many today. The operation was successful – the patient died.
Čaba Presburger (Radar, Photo: Maglošištač)
Tags: decades Union Vojvodina Hungarians autonomists radicals
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