Hungary County and District Government
City hall in Gyor
Courtesy Gustav Forster
In 1989 district government resembled that on the
national
level: a popularly elected local council chose an
executive to
administer the affairs of its jurisdiction. Communes
(kozseg), large communes (nagykozseg),
cities, and
districts of Budapest elected councils on this level.
District
councils elected the county-level councils, which also
chose an
executive.
The councils served as legislatures for their
jurisdictions,
while a chairman and an executive committee, elected from
the
ranks, carried out the actual administration of government
activities. The executive committee on the county level
supervised the work of the executive committee on the
district
level. In turn, the Council of Ministers directed the work
of the
county executive committees. The chairmen of the county
and
district councils sat on the corresponding executive
committees
of the HSWP
(see Party Structure
, this ch.).
Executive committees on each level had their own
administrative apparatus made up of specialized
departments to
manage government activities in their jurisdiction. Within
their
sphere of influence, the executive committees could
appoint and
remove the directors of branch organizations administering
these
services. However, these personnel decisions required
approval by
the executive committee at the county level or by the
Council of
Ministers. In addition, when the executive committee
appointed
local officials, it had to take into account the standards
established for those positions by the Council of
Ministers. The
Council of Ministers also had the right to submit its own
nominees for positions in the district and county
administrations
(see Council of Ministers
, this ch.).
District and county government dealt with services that
had
the most immediate impact on the lives of the citizenry:
education, housing, day care facilities, and medical care.
In the
late 1980s, the local government had jurisdiction over 90
percent
of the preschool and day care facilities, all general
(elementary) schools, most middle schools, 90 percent of
government-owned housing, 80 percent of the hospital beds,
and 70
percent of the libraries, theaters, and educational
centers. The
national government had direct control over areas such as
railroads, waterways, postal and fire services, and
communications. Local councils also had some power in
passing a
budget for their jurisdiction and to manage its execution.
In the late 1980s, county and district government had
relatively large authority in managing the local economy.
About
14,000 enterprises and firms meeting the needs of the
local
population were under their jurisdiction. The law allowed
local
governments to create these enterprises. The national
government
also permitted local government to approve the plans of
these
enterprises, which functioned mainly in the service
sector.
Since 1983 multicandidate elections to the district
councils
have been mandatory. In the 1985 elections, an estimated
88,000
candidates competed for the 42,734 district seats. About
5.4
percent of district constituencies had triple candidacies,
and
0.2 percent had quadruple candidacies. Reports of the
nomination
meetings indicated an average participation of from 200 to
400
people, a very small fraction of the approximately 30,000
people
per district. In addition, problems emerged in many
districts. In
Bacs-Kiskun County, the organizers combined the meetings
of the
twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth council districts and
allowed
them to vote jointly for each other's nominees. The PPF
nullified
the results. In Budapest two different constituencies
nominated
the same person. In 102 districts, the nominating meetings
had to
be repeated.
Data as of September 1989
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