Surrounded by half-drunk flasks of tea and bundled up in three pairs of trousers apiece, the hunger strikers entered their 26th night of protest outside the Hungarian state broadcaster on Wednesday evening. Temperatures were hovering around freezing and icy rain had started to spit. But it had been much worse, said Balazs Nagy Navarro. "At least they have turned the music off now," he said, pointing to a sandbox suspended from an upstairs window.
Inside the box was a speaker that for "five or six days solid" around Christmas had blasted Jingle Bells at top volume. It wasn't the only eviction tactic. Behind the glass of the MTVA reception area were reflectors that had been used to try to dazzle the protesters outside and prevent photographers from getting a good picture when private security guards came – and failed – to clear the camp.
"This is Guantánamo stuff," said Nagy Navarro, 44, who lost his job as a foreign news producer at MTV1 on 27 December. He had worked at the station, the equivalent of BBC1, since 1992, and was a well-known trade union leader. But had been unceremoniously fired, he said, for starting the strike on 10 December. He and a colleague, reporter Aranka Szávuly (also booted out on 27 December), decided to protest at what he sees as the "widespread manipulation of broadcasts on state TV and radio in Hungary" since the nationalist-conservative Fidesz government swept to power in April 2010, winning a two-thirds parliamentary majority.
They and the other hunger strikers, surviving on tea and clear soup, are not the only ones rising up against Fidesz and its increasingly autocratic leader, prime minister Viktor Orbán – a 48-year-old Oxford-educated lawyer with five children and a passion for football, who has done an ideological U-turn since making his name as a dissident railing against the communist regime in the dying days of the cold war.
On Monday at least 30,000 and as many as 70,000 people (estimates vary) gathered outside the neo-Renaissance opera house in Budapest in one of the biggest protests in Hungary in years. They were voicing their anger at the radical new constitution, which was being toasted inside at a gala hosted by Orbán.
While the masses loudly decried the "Viktator!" outside, the luminaries sitting in the gold-lined auditorium listened to a speech from the Fidesz-loyal president, Pál Schmitt. In it, he made not one reference to the street protest that had made it so hard for all the chauffeur-driven cars to arrive on time.
Later, after Orbán had left by the back door, one protester, 30-year-old András Istvánffy, said the demonstration had clearly shaken the prime minister. "Orbán is a product of political marketing who has made a name for himself by being fearless and always confronting his detractors. There are other politicians you'd expect to take the back door, but not Orbán," he said. "Something has changed."
Péter Krekó, research director at the Budapest-based Political Capital thinktank, agreed. "Until now, the government has brushed off all criticism by saying, 'We won our two-thirds majority in democratic elections; we have a mandate from the Hungarian people.' But with tens of thousands protesting on the streets and polls showing support for Fidesz has halved, this no longer rings true."
'Hunger revolts'
Some excited commentators have suggested a Mubarak-style ousting is in the offing. But few in Budapest agree: Fidesz is too centralised and its MPs, handpicked by Orbán, have too much to lose to start a backbench revolt. What many people believe, however, is that if the Hungarian forint keeps plunging to record lows and Orbán refuses to make policy concessions in return for a much-needed international credit line, things could get nasty.
Benedek Jávor, an MP from the fledgling green party Politics Can Be Different (LMP), predicts "hunger revolts" from the poorest Hungarians, particularly the disadvantaged rural Roma, if Hungary rejects outside help and the government continues to marginalise the most vulnerable members of society. János Samu, a macroanalyst at Concorde, said it was "politically very damaging for Orbán when people see the forint fall daily while the market interest rate of Hungary's borrowing costs increases".
While ordinary Hungarians worry most about what will happen to that mortgage they took out in Swiss francs, for many foreign observers the new constitution is the source of most anguish. It came into effect on 1 January, and, combined with at least 350 laws that have been rushed through during Fidesz's 20 months in power, has, say critics, all but removed checks and balances to the power of the government and ruling party. The independence of the central bank has been compromised and Fidesz loyalists now head powerful councils overseeing the media, the judiciary and budget. There have been crackdowns on Roma rights, and funds for education and social care have been shredded, campaigners say.
Some of the world's most powerful people and institutions have also had enough. On Thursday, a spokesman for the European Union confirmed that without a promise from Hungary that some laws would be changed or repealed, neither the EU nor the International Monetary Fund would even discuss giving it the multibillion-euro bailout even Orbán knows it needs (though he calls it an "insurance contract"). EU lawyers are going through the latest legislation with a fine-tooth comb and will soon pronounce on whether it is incompatible with European law.
But, said the European commission spokesman Olivier Bailly, "independence of the national central bank is for us a crucial element of the financial stability" that the EU wants the Hungarian government to ensure before talks can begin.
The IMF broke off talks before Christmas when the Hungarians refused to amend a law to the IMF's satisfaction. The law allowed the government to appoint its own deputy to the central bank's board as well as requiring the board to submit its agenda to the government. It has since been passed.
Orbán, in typical defiance, insisted Hungary could walk its own path and needn't be beholden to anyone. But after economists started talking about what would happen if the loan did not come through (bank runs, interest rate hikes, hyperinflation, possible bankruptcy) – and media started reporting that hordes of Hungarians were crossing the border to Austria with their handbags full of money – it was announced that a Hungarian delegation would make an "informal" visit to the IMF in Washington on 11 January.
Economists believe Orbán has no choice but to promise to repeal laws in return for the €15-50bn he needs to borrow to repay an earlier loan the IMF granted last time the country was bailed out, in 2008. The Hungarian government is now having enormous problems borrowing money after two ratings agencies declared its bonds to be "trash" at the end of last year. Couple that with the fact that the value of the forint is falling off a cliff, and you have the makings of a particularly toxic crisis.
The list of big names going public with their concerns is getting longer. Hillary Clinton has written to Orbán to raise concerns. So has the European commission president, José Manuel Barroso. On Friday the US ambassador in Budapest appeared on Hungarian state radio to express her "disappointment" that the Hungarian government had refused to consider any of America's concerns over the past few months. On Tuesday the French foreign minister, Alain Juppé went public with France's dim view on the Hungarian situation.
LMP's Javór said Orbán had made a "really big mistake" by drawing attention to himself at the Euro crisis summit in Brussels on 8 December. "By threatening to veto the rescue package, he forced Merkel, Sarkozy and Barroso to take notice of him. All had been aware for some time that there were problems in Hungary but they were too busy with the euro crisis to do much about it. When Orbán threatened to veto the salvation of the euro, the other leaders were like 'we cannot leave this guy'. From our point of view, we are pleased he did it."
'Limits to activism'
Watching from the sidelines as all this unfolds are members of the political opposition. All complain of a feeling of impotence. Javór of LMP, which won 7.48% of the vote and 16 seats in the 2010 national election, said he had failed to make any real impact inside the parliament, despite tabling 200 amendments and, along with his colleagues, speaking more regularly in the debating chamber than almost any other politician.
"It's incredibly frustrating. I, like my colleagues, have a background in activism, and when we formed the party in 2009 it was because we realised that there are certain limits to activism and thought that in order to effect change you need to be in parliament," he said. "We were optimistic when we took our seats. Now we are questioning whether being there is the best way to spend our energy." Earlier this week one of his colleagues, Virág Kaufer, resigned as an MP, saying she thought she could be more useful outside parliament.
On 23 December, Kaufer, Javór and other opposition colleagues chained themselves to the gates of parliament, a grand gothic building on the banks of the Danube. Forty-three people were arrested, including 15 LMP politicians. It was a desperate bid to express frustration with Fidesz's "systematic dismantling of democracy", said Javór. But as an attention-seeking tactic, it worked. "The protest was covered all over the media nationally and internationally. It was a turning point."
As the protests grow, young Hungarians are starting to explore alternatives to the established political parties. Upstairs at Budapest pub The Seagull on Thursday night, a group calling itself One Million for the Freedom of the Press (Milla for short) was plotting its next move. Since being formed on Facebook by veteran political activist Péter Juhász in December 2010, the collective has grown to 95,000 Facebook members and in October mobilised between 50,000 and 100,000 people for a demonstration against the new media laws – all paid for by 1.7m forints (around £5,000 at the then exchange rate) of donations pledged on the social networking site.
Their goals are big, said Juhász. "The last polls said 55-60% of Hungarians are so disillusioned with politics that they would not vote for any political party if there were an election tomorrow. What we want to do is create the conditions where new faces can come through as future leaders."
One practical step they are taking is the launch of a new media platform "to represent ideas and issues not represented in the mainstream", said Juhász. He believes the portal will have the budget to do heavy-hitting journalistic investigations. A Swiss pro-media organisation has already pledged €50,000 in support, he said.
Another initiative is the election of the "alternative president of Hungary", a Facebook-initiated talent contest to find new political voices who can represent the country better – or at least differently – than the real president. Adam Schönberger, one of the organisers, said: "We want to offer an alternative for the future, to find someone who can speak out about the hidden issues the media avoids." The new president will have an office as well as advisers, said Schönberger, who hopes protest movements in other countries will copy the model.
András Istvánffy has formed a political party called The Fourth Republic (4k! for short) – the name is apt, he said, "because the third one ended on 1 January", a reference to the new constitution changing the country's name from the Republic of Hungary to simply Hungary. 4K! Sees itself as a leftwing alternative to the Socialist party, which alienated Hungarians so badly that Fidesz was able to win its super-majority in 2010.
Istvánffy wants to see an end to Orbán's regime – or, as he puts it, "his illogical, incoherent dictatorship". But not too soon. "We're not registering as a political party until May and we need time to organise ourselves."
• This article was amended on 10 January 2012. The original referred to Benedek Javór by his forename rather than his surname. This has been corrected.
