Lacking actual projects designed to improve the lives of Romanian citizens of Hungarian ethnicity in Romania, the leaders of UDMR resort to the emotional manipulation of the Hungarian voters, in view of maximising their election attendance. The vote beneficiaries will, however, be the UDMR members entering the European Parliament, and not the Hungarian ethnics in Romania.
The election campaign for the European Parliament Election of May 26th has shown yet again the rift between the political elite of the Hungarian community in Romania, grouped around UDMR, and the Hungarian ethnics of Transylvania. Instead of discussing motorways, the granting of European funds, the construction of hospitals and kindergartens with European funds, the fight against the double quality standards in food products in the European Union, or the increase of Hungarian farmer subsidies with the Hungarian ethnics, UDMR tried to emotionally manipulate them by spreading fake topics and fake news.
Instead of presenting their achievements of the past five years in the European Parliament to Transylvanian Hungarians, UDMR leaders manipulate Hungarian ethnics by fake news, designed to emotionally incite them and determine them to vote, in numbers as high as possible.
For the past five years, UDMR had two representatives in the European Parliament – Sogor Csaba and Iuliu Winkler. During the current election campaign, UDMR should have presented the actions taken by its two parliament members, designed to improve the lives of Transylvanian Hungarians, to its voters (leaving aside the fact that they lived very good lives on high amounts of public money). Unfortunately, UDMR did not present anything, because there was nothing to present.
Consequently, lacking actual achievements of the past five years, future plans, and solid goals, UDMR resorted to emotional manipulation, in order to make sure that the Hungarian voters, fed up with the promises of UDMR leaders, would attend the elections. To this end, UDMR used an old trick, which seems to work every time: emotional manipulation.
The recipe used by UDMR this time around is spreading fake news, in view of emotionally manipulating Hungarian ethnics. Various topics were used. I will show the main three spread by UDMR and designed to manipulate Transylvanian Hungarian voters (there is surely more fake news around):
1. The UDMR mayor of Corund was fined EUR 100000 for writing ‘Kozseghaza’ (in Hungarian) on the village hall. The Hungarian mayor was fined by a Romanian court for writing the village hall name in Hungarian.
In a post on his Facebook page, UDMR leader Kelemen Hunor was extremely revolted by the decision of Târgu Mureş Court of Appeal and threatened to take the issue before European institutions.
In actual fact, UDMR mayor of Corund, Katona Mihaly, was unappealably fined by Târgu Mureș Court of Appeal for the refusal of enforcing a final decision, and not for placing a bilingual title on the village hall building. Initially, the UDMR mayor of Corund placed a title specific to the Hungarian administrative system, namely ‘Kozseghaza’, onto the village hall building. Asociația Civică pentru Demnitate în Europa [The Civic Association for Dignity in Europe] (ADEC) took legal action against the mayor, and the court obliged him to remove ‘Kozseghaza’ from the village hall building. The mayor refused; consequently, the court fined him and obliged him to pay penalties to ADEC.
If the mayor had placed ‘Polgarmesteri Hivatal’ on the village hall, it would have been a lawful action. Not acting this way led to legal consequences. Moreover, had he enforced the final decision within the legal term, he wouldn’t have paid a penny in fines. In Romania, the enforcement of final decisions is mandatory for all citizens, irrespective of ethnicity, which includes Hungarian ethnics.
UDMR manipulation in this case was pointed out even by the former secretary general of UDMR, Kovacs Peter. In an editorial in Hungarian language, published on transindex.ro, Kovacs debunks the fake news spread by Kelemen Hunor and states that ‘in a state subject to the rule of law, final court decisions must be observed by Szekely mayors’.
2. UDMR leader, Kelemen Hunor, untruthfully stated publicly, in view of manipulating Hungarian voters, that the International Cemetery of Heroes in Valea Uzului is ‘public property, administered by Sânmartin Commune’ of Harghita County, led by a UDMR mayor.
‘It is unacceptable to enter a cemetery, a sacred space, without considering anything, without discussing with those who care for the cemetery – with the cemetery being public property, administered by Sânmartin Commune –, and by ignoring current laws, including the bilateral agreements and international regulations regarding the regime of military cemeteries’, states Kelemen Hunor, cited by Adevărul.
In actual fact, we are dealing with fake news irresponsibly spread by UDMR, in view of generating emotions around a topic that also involves Romanian ethnics, thus guaranteeing more votes in the European Parliament Election of May 26th.
The International Cemetery of Heroes in Valea Uzului lawfully, judicially, and administratively pertains to Dărmăneşti administrative-territorial unit of Bacău County. The information is officially confirmed by a document of Bacău Land Title and Survey Office, dated October 2018. Contacted in relation to the location of the International Cemetery of Heroes in Valea Uzului, Bacău Land Title and Survey Office informed Dărmăneşti administrative-territorial unit that this cemetery was located within Dărmăneşti administrative-territorial unit.
3. The election attendance of Romanians in high numbers on May 26th would lower the number of the Hungarian ethnics from Romania entering the European Parliament.
In this case, too, we are dealing with fake news spread by UDMR, with the obvious goal of emotionally manipulating the Hungarian voters.
In actual fact, the Hungarian voters in Romania have had enough of the ethnocentric discourse promoted by UDMR leaders, lacking any European values. UDMR leaders failed to explain to plain Hungarian ethnics in Odorheiu Secuiesc, Satu Mare, or Covasna the way in which their lives improved, throughout the 5-year Bucharest-Brussels back-and-forth of Sogor Csaba and Iuliu Winkler, on high amounts of public money.
UDMR failed to share its achievements to own voters, after the five years spent by its members in the European Parliament. Moreover, UDMR did not convince by its planned projects and did not show the Hungarian ethnics in Romania the manner in which it would act in the European Parliament, in order for them to have motorways, schools, or hospitals. Because it failed to convince voters and mobilise them, UDMR resorted to scary Romanian-connected messages, the majority population allegedly impeding the access of UDMR to the European Parliament.
Beyond the ethnocentric and irredentist propaganda of UDMR, Hungarian ethnics in Romania face the same issues as Romanians: low standard of living; lack of motorways, hospitals, and schools; negative demographic evolution, etc. In the election campaign for the European Parliament, UDMR did not approach any topic with an immediate impact over the standard of living of Hungarian ethnics in Romania. The emotional manipulation run by UDMR through fake news does not help plain Hungarian ethnics in Romania pay their bills or their bank instalments and does not keep hunger at bay either.
PHOTO: Kelemen Hunor, Gandul/Mediafax
Tags: European Parliament, Hungarian, UDMR, voters
