Restructuring in 1999, from January till September
Restructuring in 1999, from January till September
The Year 1999 could be described with four very important phenomena. On the one hand, the government’s dominance was broken, and support of Fidesz grew weaker by the month. It grew weaker by 1 or 2%, but the decrease was steady. Some public opinion research institutes measured the government’s performance and the trend in the public’s satisfaction/dissatisfaction with the politicians without regard to political parties. The results could demonstrate that disillusionment in the government and Viktor Orbán’s loss of popularity show a much steeper downward slope than the decrease in the authority of the Fidesz party.
On the other hand, almost equally slowly but steadily, in parallel with the downward trend of the governing party, the acceptance of the Socialists increased. The two trends crossed sometime between late May and early June, and the change-over became unambiguous by the autumn of 1999. Various pollsters indicated a 12 to 18% advantage on the Socialists’ side, i.e., the radical change became apparent for everyone.
Thirdly, the loss of support of the lesser parties continued, consequently the influence of visionaries of a bipartite, alternating political system became stronger in the public opinion. Finally – fourthly – the rate of hesitant voters, hiding their own preferences or the rate of citizens protesting against politics by absenting themselves from the general elections or abstaining during the elections visibly increased, but these signs were not considered to be significant enough to change the political structure.
