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The Budapest Sun, August 1, 2007.
Plebiscites are important components of many democracies, as they allow voters to pass judgement on a government's program, without having to wait four years for a general election.
Of course, there are other ways to effectively tell the government what one thinks of its record, without having to hold a referendum. The 2004 EU parliamentary election in Hungary served this purpose, as did local Hungarian elections in Oct 2006.
Yet the current debate around what appears to be an imminent referendum on multiple questions is becoming rather farcical.
The concern is not, however, the fact that someone attempted to get the National Election Committee (OVB) to hold a referendum on whether Hungary should have a siesta and actually succeeded in this endeavor, since collecting the requisite 200,000 signatures is often a more challenging task than sending in one's proposals and getting them approved.
Convincing an adequate number of voters to participate on voting day in order to validate the referendum is an ever larger hurdle, and this was best evidenced in the 2004 referendum.
The real problem is that approval of the more substantial questions proposed by Fidesz - concerning the elimination of university tuition fees, the hospital day tariff and doctors fees - first submitted at the end of 2006, has dragged on for more than six months.
The questions were first rejected by the OVB, only to be sent back by the Constitutional Court after the proposal was deemed to be in accordance with the constitution.
Since the collection of signatures can start only in the fall, the earliest possible date for the referendum would be in spring 2008.
This means that people will be able to vote on these questions only a year and a half after they were submitted.
Out of fairness to those who proposed the questions, as well as the millions of people who would like to exercise their vote on these issues, the approval process must be streamlined and made less bureaucratic.
Another, equally problematic, aspect of the referendum debate is that, since the fall of 2006, Fidesz has promised something to center-right voters that it clearly cannot deliver; namely that a plebiscite can be used to remove the Socialist-Liberal coalition government from power.
If voters believe this, then they are going to be bitterly disappointed. The government has a comfortable majority in parliament and the only way to force a new general election is if the Free Democrats (SzDSz), or Socialist backbenchers dissatisfied with the current prime minister (and there are quite a few of them) decide to revolt. The referendum can serve as a potent tool to weaken Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány's position within his own party and the coalition - possibly even leading to his resignation - but it cannot in itself remove the Socialists from power.
Christopher Adam
Ottawa, Canada