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Polls suggest extremists will profit from Europe’s economic woes to make record gains in the May elections. Here, we analyse them country by country

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HUNGARY

The antisemitic Jobbik party is likely to retain its seats in May, but that result could be affected by the outcome of the national election in April, experts say.

The latest polls show Jobbik has at least 11 per cent support among decided voters. This would translate into two or three seats in the European Parliament. It currently holds three.

But analysts say support for extremist parties is unpredictable because supporters are hesitant to reveal their preferences before election day. In Hungary, 41 per cent of the electorate is undecided or uncommitted to a party.

In 2009, many were surprised when Jobbik won 15 per cent of the popular vote, says Péter Balázs, professor at Budapest’s Central European University.

Voters feel they can support extremist parties in European elections because “there is no direct political consequence of the choice of the voters,” he said. “It’s almost symbolic and sometimes compensation for the outcome of the national election.”

Jobbik’s influence in the next European parliament will be limited by its small size and extremism. Its MEPs are not members of an official political group, which means they have “less chance to speak and have an impact on the votes,” said Péter Krekó, of the Hungarian think-tank, Political Capital.

Jobbik’s two closest allies ideologically are the BNP, which does not belong to a group either, and Greece’s Golden Dawn, which does not have any MEPs.

Other right-wing parties are unlikely to embrace Jobbik because of its strong antisemitic and anti-Israeli stance.
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more: theJConline

THE Hungarian government’s Holocaust memorial year has got off to a bad start. Randolph Braham of City University of New York, a historian of the genocide of Hungarian Jews, has returned an award given by a former president. A survivor himself, he has also asked for his name to be removed from Budapest’s Holocaust museum. Hungarian Jewish leaders are threatening to boycott the government’s programme.

The cause of their anger is a planned statue to commemorate the Nazi invasion of 1944. The 7.5-metre statue shows the German imperial eagle attacking the Archangel Gabriel, symbolising an innocent and virtuous Hungary. The statue is to be unveiled in Freedom Square on March 19th, the 70th anniversary of the invasion. Both Jewish leaders and historians condemn it for portraying Hungary as a victim of the Nazis, not as a willing collaborator. More than 430,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to Auschwitz in the summer of 1944, with the active help of Hungarian officials.

Professor Braham says the planned statue is just the latest attempt to whitewash the era of Admiral Horthy, Hungary’s ruler from 1920 to 1944. He calls it a “cowardly attempt to distract attention” from the Horthy regime’s collaboration and “a brazen drive to falsify history”. A Calvinist church in the square already has a bust of the admiral.

more: theEconomist