In a free and fair election last spring in Hungary, the center-right political party, Fidesz, got 53% of the vote. This translated into 68% of the seats in the parliament under Hungary’s current disproportionate election law. With this supermajority, Fidesz won the power to change the constitution. They have used this power in the most extreme way at every turn, amending the constitution ten times in their first year in office and then enacting a wholly new constitution that will take effect on January 1, 2012.

This constitutional activity has transformed the legal landscape to remove checks on the power of the government and put virtually all power into the hands of the current governing party for the foreseeable future.

Full article here: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/hungarys-constitutional-revolution/

I have talked a bit about this w/ some of my Hungarian colleagues and, for the most part, they seem disillusioned and angry at the Fidesz party but, sadly, there is no concrete party on the left to balance out these extremists.

C