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Hungary STATE APPARATUS
Unavailable
Figure 8. Government System, 1986
Source: Based on information from Hans-Georg Heinrich, Hungary:
Politics, Economics, and Society, Boulder, Colorado, 1986, 70.
The political system of Hungary bore some similarity to
a
parliamentary form of government. In principle, power in
the
government emanated from the National Assembly, which
elected its
own leadership--the Presidential Council and its chairman,
who
served as chief of state--and the Council of Ministers,
which
formed the government
(see
fig. 8). The state apparatus,
however,
was not the center of political power in Hungary. The
government
merely executed policies designed by the HSWP. Within the
government itself, power resided in the Council of
Ministers and
the Presidential Council. The National Assembly merely
ratified
decisions made elsewhere.
Government life centered on the Council of Ministers.
The
regime established the Council of Ministers in the
immediate
postwar period using the Soviet Council of Ministers as a
model.
The primary function of the Council of Ministers was to
administer the economy. It also had the power to pass some
legislation; the ministries could make laws in their own
jurisdictions.
The Presidential Council--the collective chief of
state--was
modeled after the Soviet Union's Presidium of the Supreme
Soviet.
The council, headed by its chairman, combined legislative
and
executive functions. In fact, the Presidential Council
passed
most of the country's legislation.
The HSWP effectively exercised control over the
government.
In 1989 all members of the Council of Ministers and most
members
of the Presidential Council were party members and served
on such
party bodies as the Central Committee and the Politburo
(see Party Structure
, this ch.). As party leaders, government
officials formulated economic, political, and social
policies.
These officials were subject to the norms of democratic
centralism, which required them to carry out the
directives of
the HSWP or face party discipline
(see Democratic Centralism
, this ch.). Equally important, the party exercised control
over
these governmental institutions through its power of
nomenklatura (see Glossary),
a list of party and
government positions for which the party had power to make
appointments. The HSWP's Basic Organizations ensured that
the
staff of each ministry adhered to party policies on a
day-to-day
basis.
In the 1980s, the regime opened up the political system
to a
greater degree of popular participation. Although
multicandidate
elections had been permitted since the late 1960s, a 1983
amendment to the Constitution made mandatory the
multicandidate
elections for the National Assembly and the local
councils.
However, these elections took place under the auspices of
the
PPF, which guaranteed that candidates accepted its
program. A
national list of candidates to the National Assembly, who
ran
unopposed, did ensure the election of party and government
luminaries, as well as of other figures of national
importance.
Nevertheless, in the 1985 elections many independent
candidates,
who were not among the PPF's original slate of nominees,
succeeded in gaining seats in the National Assembly and
the local
councils. Significantly, although the regime structured
the
elections to favor its candidates, until mid-1989 the
Hungarian
electoral system was the most democratic in Eastern
Europe.
The local councils had very little power. Ironically,
their
chief importance lay in administering those services, such
as
education, housing, and food supply, that had the greatest
impact
on people's lives.
Like other Marxist-Leninist regimes in the late 1980s,
Hungary lacked an independent judiciary. The Supreme
Court,
together with a system of lower courts on the county and
district
levels, had few duties and little power. The prosecutor
general
and his subordinates on the local levels represented the
state in
prosecuting persons accused of a crime. However, the law
also
obligated these officials to protect the rights of the
citizenry
and ensure a fair trial for the accused.
Data as of September 1989
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