Gyongyos, Hungary -- While running for a parliamentary seat in Hungary's April elections, far-right candidate Gabor Vona made one campaign promise that was controversial even by his standards: If voted into parliament, the 31-year-old extremist would report for duty wearing the insignia of his outlawed paramilitary organization, the "Hungarian Guard" -- a taboo symbol that, with its ancient, red-and-white-striped emblem, bears a striking resemblance to the flag of Hungary's Nazi-era fascist party, Arrow Cross.
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The suggestion was intolerable to many Hungarians. Arrow Cross's brief period of political dominance, during which the party murdered thousands of Hungarian Jews and shipped many tens of thousands more to concentration camps outside the country, is still a painful subject. More to the point, the insignia itself is illegal. Vona's announcement directly flouted a court decision banning the Hungarian Guard, and it provoked the outgoing Hungarian prime minister into asking the Justice Ministry to investigate.
But the controversy appeared only to reinforce the popularity of Vona's far-right, Web-savvy Jobbik party, which went on to win a stunning 16.7 percent of the vote -- the best performance of any hypernationalist party in post-communist Eastern Europe. And Vona kept his word: At the May 14 inauguration, he took off his suit jacket to reveal a black vest with the Hungarian Guard's emblem.
Vona's intransigence may have been shocking, but it wasn't surprising. Central Europe may be two decades removed from communist dictatorship and ensconced in Western institutions such as the European Union and NATO -- but few people are cheering. Promises of a glorious new post-communist life have resulted only in rising prices, growing unemployment, and endemic corruption. And resentment is fueling a greater appetite for right-wing extremism across the region, according to a new survey by the Budapest-based think tank Political Capital. In Hungary alone, right-wing attitudes have leapt from 10 to 20 percent since 2003.
"It's been constant disillusionment that many people [in Hungary] are susceptible to. They're bitter about the whole system," says Alex Kuli, a Political Capital analyst. "That's what Vona is responding to and manipulating -- this deep-seated disillusionment."
Vona came of age amid the post-communist collapse of industry and agriculture, which was particularly devastating in his native northeastern Hungary. The young Vona, a good student in the small town of Gyongyos with a strong interest in politics and debate, was fascinated by Hungarian history, which was often distorted by the communists. Most obvious was the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, which punished Hungary for its role in World War I. The victors lopped off two-thirds of Hungary's territory and one-third of its people -- including five of its 10 largest cities. Desire to recover those lands would help drive Hungary into the Nazis' arms during World War II. But that national trauma, which resonates even today, was glossed over in communist-era history books.
Vona took notice. "He felt history was written by the winners," says Vona's cousin, Viktoria Laczhazi, herself a Jobbik volunteer in a city near Gyongyos. "And because we were the losers, our history wasn't being told."
At university in cosmopolitan Budapest, Vona explored history and psychology and reportedly planned to become a history professor. His strident politics, though, swept him in another direction. In 2003, dissatisfied with the political spectrum available to him, Vona and his comrades founded a new party, Jobbik, to fight for "national radicalism."
Jobbik snared just 2 percent in the 2006 elections. Later that year, however, the party caught a lucky break and exploited it fully. In September, then-Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany -- a communist-turned-millionaire whose Socialist Party is heir to the old communist party -- was caught on tape admitting his Socialists won reelection by lying to voters "morning, evening, and night" about the country's economic health.
Bloody riots erupted in the streets of Budapest. Protesters, portraying themselves as patriots seeking to overturn an illegitimate government, rehabilitated the red-and-white "Arpad stripes," derived from an ancient royal coat of arms, but now associated in Hungary with the Arrow Cross flag. Suddenly, the insignia was back in fashion.
And Jobbik, whose members were the ones wearing the stripes, came into fashion too. Under Vona's leadership, Jobbik has adopted the enduring trauma of Trianon, epitomized by the 2.5 million or so ethnic Hungarians who today live across Hungary's borders -- mostly in Romania, Slovakia, and Serbia -- as a cause célèbre. Images of "Greater Hungary," which extends the borders to those of the old monarchy, were a rarity in the 1990s. Today, they're ubiquitous on bumper stickers, posters, and T-shirts. It has also stirred tensions with Hungary's northern neighbor, Slovakia, much of which was once part of the Hungarian kingdom.
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