"Viktor Orban. Dictator!" read one sign. "Enough!" screamed another. "Hey Europe, sorry about my prime minister," said a third. And there were hundreds more on Monday night in Budapest as tens of thousands of people gathered in front of the city's famous opera house to protest against the country's controversial new constitution, which went into effect on Jan. 1.
"The prime minister took an oath to defend the constitution, but instead he overthrew it," said Laszlo Majtenyi, the former head of the country's media authority, at the rally. "Tonight, the Opera is the home of hypocrisy and the street the home of constitutional virtues."
The crowd gathered outside as inside Prime Minister Viktor Orban and other leading government officials celebrated the new Basic Law inside the opera. Hungarian President Pal Schmitt defended the document, saying that his countrymen should be proud of it. "The constitution was born of a wide consultation, building on national and European values," he said in a speech at the celebration. "Our Basic Law defines the family, order, the home, work and health as the most important, shared scale of values."
The passage of the new constitution marks the crowning achievement of Orban's center-right Fidesz party, 18 months into its rule. The party won 53 percent of the vote in the spring of 2010, resulting in 68 percent of the seats in parliament, enough to radically change Hungary's legal landscape. Since then, according to Kim Lane Scheppele, director of Princeton University's Program in Law and Public Affairs and a long-time observer of Hungary, Fidesz has passed 359 laws. » | cgh -- with wire reports | Tuesday, January 03, 2012
