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POLITICAL TRANSITION AND THE PROFESSIONALISATION OF POLITICAL COMMUNICATION | 165

introduction of debates between the candidates for prime ministerial candidates in
1994, or the huge mass meeting with more than a hundred thousand participants in
2002,and extreme negative campaigns at every election campaign.

Negative campaigning has been a feature of Hungarian election campaigns from the
very beginning of the change of the regime. The labels the parties used in these
negative campaigns (murderers, communists, fascist, dictators, former state secret
service agents, Jews, anti-nationalist, cosmopolitans, etc.) had far-reaching
consequences beyond the contest amongst the parties, and resulted in deep trauma
within the public, whose members otherwise would not be emotionally involved in the
political process. The negative and emotionally-charged campaign created a short
circuit between the parties and their potential supporters, which was to make a simple
difference between ‘us’ and ‘them’ and create an identity (mainly as a form of ‘hating
them’), and an emotional involvement that was a substitute for the social
embeddedness and party loyalty that was lacking.The question remains as to whether
this type of hate speech, supported by modern marketing principles of symbolical and
emotional approach, will be limited to the period of party building and party
identification,or whether it will remain a permanent feature of Hungarian party politics.

The use of so-called professional communication methods undoubtedly exacerbated
the intense competition between the parties. Competition over a period of ten years
was reduced to a hard fight between the two large parties.The result, and the secret to
the success of the dominant Hungarian parties, is that, in using professional marketing
and PR tools, they brought to the surface and intensified the latent dividing lines that
had long characterised Hungarian society:traditional,historical religions versus atheism
and new small churches; nationalism versus cosmopolitanism; urban versus rural; anti-
communism versus socialism and liberalism.

The last election in 2002 was less a competitive struggle and more akin to a civil war
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that produced almost equal electoral results for the two camps. The two parties were
different both in their values and in their campaigning styles. Political Transition and the Professionalisation of Political Communication

THE COMMUNICATION STYLE OF THE TWO MAJOR PARTIES: THE TWO DIFFERENT MODELS OF
PROFESSIONALISATION OF POLITICAL COMMUNICATION
The Alliance of Young Democrats (‘Fidesz’) (1988) – ‘Fidesz’ – Hungarian Civic Party (1995) –
‘Fidesz’– Hungarian Civic Alliance (2003)
Of all the Hungarian parties, the Alliance of Young Democrats was the first to recognise
the role of political marketing – and even more importantly, the use of political market
research methods – in forming and articulating its policies to the public. Accordingly, it
exploited professional political marketing and PR communication tools in both its
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triumphant 1998 campaign and also while in government from 1998 to 2002. Based
on results of social and political research they analysed carefully the causes of the
failings of the first right-wing government (Stumpf, 1998). The party ordered political 167