Since January, Megafon has spent more than HUF 50 million (€126k) on Facebook ads criticizing European politicians categorized as “left-wing”.
Megafon’s propagandists also name several “left-wing” politicians in these advertised videos, including French President Emmanuel Macron, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Manfred Weber, President of the European People's Party (EPP), and Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission.
The problem with this, however, is that many of the politicians referred to as "leftist" in Megafon’s videos can hardly be considered left-wing.
It is impossible to place individual politicians precisely on the left-right spectrum, and this article does not attempt to do so. However, in the case of the politicians mentioned by Megafon, we can see that:
We asked Dániel Róna, political scientist and director of the 21 Research Center to help us.
"European left-wing politicians" in one of Dániel Bohár's latest ads, running since 4 April.
The division of political parties and politicians into left and right dates back to 1789, the time of the French Revolution, when members of the French National Assembly met to discuss how much power to give King Louis XVI. The issue divided the French into two camps: the anti-revolutionaries on the left of the president who chaired the assembly, and the more conservative constitutional monarchists on the right.
Later, in the 19th century, this division spread to the rest of the world. In many places, politicians still sit in parliaments along these lines (this is not true of Hungary, where the ruling parties sit on the right and the opposition on the left, regardless of political affiliation).
“The starting point of right-wing thinking is that what is valuable in the world should be preserved and that changes should be made only carefully and little. This goes back to the anthropological pessimism that man is fallible and that if he does not follow tradition and obey institutions and social norms, he will do wrong. Therefore, society must be governed by the family, the church, the state, and tradition,” says Dániel Róna.
The political scientist notes that left-wing thinking is the opposite of this, i.e. it assumes that people are inherently good, that they know what is good for them, that they want freedom, and that society will be ideal if people are allowed to act according to their free will and are less restricted by the church, the state or the family. According to the left, society must be constantly shaped by the will of the people, so that it always meets the challenges of the times.
1. Emmanuel Macron
The clear star of Megafon's World War III videos is Emmanuel Macron. The French president is a member of the liberal Renaissance party, which he founded in 2016 under the name En Marche! Previously, he was minister for the economy, industry, and digital affairs under socialist Francois Hollande from 2014 to 2016 – but in an interview with Le Monde in 2016, he made a point of stressing that “just because I am a minister in a left-wing government does not make me a socialist.” According to Róna, it is difficult to place Macron on the left-right axis, but he cannot be defined as clearly left-wing.
Viktor Orbán and Emmanuel Marcon in Austria in 2018. Photo by Christof STACHE / AFP
“More active state involvement in left-wing economic policy, higher taxes in return for higher social benefits, are not characteristic of Macron's policy,” notes Róna, who says that Macron's foreign policy cannot be called left-wing either, because the French president talks about an active and strong France, about engagement and intervention, while a left-wing foreign policy would mean that the country spends less on the military and works to end or at least reduce aggression between states.
2. Donald Tusk
Megafon lists among “pro-war left-wing politicians” the Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who has been a member of the centre-right or moderate right-wing party Civic Platform (Polish: Platforma Obywatelska, PO) since its foundation in 2001. In the 2023 elections, Tusk's party will be in coalition with the moderate, centralist, Christian Democrat Polish People's Party (PSL), the also centralist Poland 2050 (Polska 2050), and the New Left coalition. According to Dániel Róna, “Tusk can be described as a right-wing politician who is allying with the left to defeat another right-wing party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski's Law and Justice.”
Viktor Orbán and Donald Tusk in Budapest in 2018. Photo: the Prime Minister's Press Office / Balázs Szecsődi.
Tusk’s party in the European Parliament is a member of the European People’s Party, of which Fidesz was a member until March 2021 and of which the KDNP (The Christian Democratic People's Party, the official coalition partner of Fidesz) is still a member. Where a national party sits in the European Parliament is interesting if only because it is the parties themselves who choose which political group they want to belong to.
“It says a lot about who is in what kind of company. This is a good political compass for both international and Hungarian parties” – says Róna.
3, The Germans: Manfred Weber, Ursula von der Leyen, and the German government
“The German left-wing government” also often appears in Megafon's videos, and this is the claim that comes closest to the truth. Chancellor Olaf Scholz is a member of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), which considers itself a centre-left party. In the videos about the threat of a possible third world war, the following politicians are mentioned:
However, in addition to the members of the government, Manfred Weber and Ursula von der Leyen are also often referred to as “left-wing” politicians by Megafon’s propagandists – although they are affiliated with right-wing parties.
Manfred Weber is president of the right-wing conservative group in the European Parliament, the European People's Party. He is also a member of The Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU), a Christian Democratic-Conservative party, with whom Katalin Novák negotiated in October 2021, as the Minister for Families:
“The Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) continues to see Fidesz as a natural partner and is ready to continue its cooperation.”
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (left) received Manfred Weber, leader of the European People's Party, at the Carmelite Monastery in Budapest on 12 March 2019. / Photo: Prime Minister's Press Office.
Many of the Megafon videos feature Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, who is a right-wing conservative politician. Von der Leyen has been a member of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) since 1990, and under Angela Merkel's chancellorship she served as Minister of Family Affairs and Youth, then Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, then Minister for Defence, before being elected President of the European Commission in 2019.
Viktor Orbán and Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels in 2023. Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP
4. The Hungarian opposition
The Hungarian “left-wing” politicians are very close to the “international leftists”, at least according to Megafon's videos.
According to Róna, the Hungarian opposition includes the socialists, a green-left party, or the liberals, but he would not claim that “the entire Hungarian opposition is left-wing.”
Whether Fidesz is seen as a right-wing party is not a question, but their policies contain elements that are considered typical of the left wing. According to Dániel Róna, “they don't advertise this because it would contradict the party's rhetoric.” As the political scientist notes:
"there are elements of Fidesz's economic policy that are entirely typical of left-wing parties or governments.”
These include windfall taxes on banks and multinational companies, strong state involvement, and the 27 percent VAT. “In Western Europe, no right-wing government would impose such a high VAT, the right generally thinks in terms of low taxes. However, single rate tax is a typical right-wing concept” – says Róna.
But the political scientist says that left and right in the vocabulary of Fidesz, the government and the media associated with them means something different from what it actually means. These labels function as political products, and political language is a tool to create enemies.
“The government and its media accordingly call all its enemies left-wing and all its friends right-wing, even if this distorts reality. Robert Fico, for example, is a left-wing politician, yet the government does not call him that because he is a friend. Just as the otherwise right-wing European People's Party is not called by its name because they are the enemy.”
Cover photo: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (left) received Manfred Weber, leader of the European People's Party, at the Carmelite Monastery in Budapest on 12 March 2019. / Photo: Prime Minister's Press Office.
Translated by Benedek Totth
