Anti-Roma (gypsies), anti-Semitic far-right party poised to gain in Hungarian election.

[pampango]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/08/jobbik-hungary-move-from-fringes

It has been a good few weeks for racists, populists and rightwing radicals across Europe. A comeback for Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front in French regional elections. Big gains in Italy for the anti-immigrant Northern League. The Islam-baiting campaign of Geert Wilders in the Netherlands has taken his Freedom party to 25% and poll position ahead of June's general election.

And this weekend, Hungary is facing its biggest political earthquake in 20 years of democracy. On Sunday, the mainstream right and the neofascists are expected to take over the Westminster lookalike parliament on the banks of the Danube. It will be a landslide victory. The next prime minister, Viktor Orban, a combative populist, is leading his centre-right Fidesz party to a huge majority, running at more than 60% in the opinion polls. He may even secure a two-thirds majority enabling him to rewrite Hungary's constitution at will.

But the biggest breakthrough will be for Jobbik, the extremist antisemitic and antigypsy movement "for a better Hungary", which will win seats in the parliament for the first time and may emerge as the second biggest party. Though banned, Jobbik maintains a "Hungarian guard" of paramilitaries who dress in 1940s fascist paraphernalia. Vona wants this "gendarmerie" to police Roma "ghettos".

"Jobbik is openly legitimising anti-Roma violence. It is openly antisemitic. And it will do very well on Sunday," said Anton Pelinka, an Austrian political scientist working in Budapest. Gaspar Miklos Tamas, a liberal and veteran anticommunist dissident, wrote this week that "a national tragedy" was befalling Hungary. "There are many factors, but the most important is the success of the post-fascist Jobbik party."