The Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania (Romanian: Uniunea Democrată Maghiară din România, UDMR; Hungarian: Romániai Magyar Demokrata Szövetség, RMDSZ) is an ethnically based political party representing ethnic Hungarians in Romania. As of 2004, it is the ethnic minority party in Romania with representation in the Romanian parliament.

Hungarian Reformed Church bishop László Tőkés is honorary president of the party.

Status

UDMR is a highly controversial political organization in Romania. Although it has been part of the Romanian parliament and sometimes even had positions in the Romanian government, UDMR has never been registered as an official Romanian political party. This is a constant criticism made by its political opponents and sometimes by the critics of the Romanian democracy.

UDMR consists of heterogeneous political groups following very different political ideologies, which range from extreme right to extreme left. It is, however, closer to the left part of the national political spectrum. Some anti-Semitic declarations by top UDMR members have been recently reported (i.e. Halmeu 2004, during the local elections in article published by Gazeta de Nord-Vest). The main element that keeps UDMR together, despite its internal ideological differences, is the Hungarian ethnicity of its members. UDMR defines itself as a pro-European political force, like all important Romanian parties.

The existence of UDMR is widely considered as the political expression of the tacit Romanian-Hungarian conflict started after World War I. It constantly obtains around 6% of the votes in Romanian elections, which is the percentage of the ethnic Hungarians in Romania.

History

UDMR was founded during the Romanian Revolution of 1989, on December 25, 1989, by Domokos Geza , a Moscow-educated communist politician of Romanian origin. UDMR defined itself as one of the political groups that fought against Nicolae Ceauşescu.

The context in which UDMR was created was very complex. After WWI, Hungary has started a revanchistcampaign to recover the territories it lost after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Among these territories was Transylvania, which became part of Romania after that war. This revanchist campaign took a new turn in 1968, when Romanian leader Nicolae Ceauşescu took a pro-Western attitude and condemned the USSR's invasion of Czechoslovakia, which put an end to the Prague Spring. In that moment Moscow decided to support Hungary's interests against Romania's in order to attack Ceauşescu's regime. This has resulted into a wave of anti-Romanian agitation and propaganda that the Budapest government conducted on Romanian territory, especially by using the network of Hungarian Protestant churches.

UDMR was founded by persons who had participated in Hungarian revanchist propaganda during the 1970s and '80s, so it is often considered a continuation of that propaganda in a European context.

Until 1996, UDMR took an isolated role in the Romanian political life. In 1996 the governed in coalition with the Convenţia Democrată Română (CDR) - a wide alliance that succeeded in winning the elections that year - and obtained some positions in the government of Victor Ciorbea.

Four years later, the ex-communists from Partidul Social Democrat (PSD) of Ion Iliescu won the 2000 elections, mostly due to the disastrous results of the CDR governments, and UDMR worked out a new deal with the PSD.

In the 2004 elections, UDMR made an alliance to back Adrian Năstase, who was the favourite to win the presidential elections, but a surprise victory of Traian Băsescu rocked the Romanian political spectrum. Analysts consider that the defeat of Năstase was caused by the unpopular demands of UDMR that Năstase was willing to fulfill. Eventually, UDMR managed to create an alliance with the new government and even got some marginal positions in the government.

In all these alliances, UDMR has requested various educational and economic rights for ethnic Hungarians. Almost all of the requests of UDMR can be found among the elements promoted by Budapest with Soviet backing in the 1970s and 80's. However, they are also in line with typical European Union expectations for the treatment of ethnic minorities.

Structure

UDMR consists of two major wings: the "moderates" and the "radicals". The moderates are led by Bela Marko , who is also the official leader of UDMR. The radicals are led by László Tőkés, who is the honorary president of UDMR.

In 2004, the radicals attempted to create an alternate political movement named Uniunea Civica Maghiara (UCM). Their attempt failed but they continue to press. Radicals are by far in minority. According to a poll, only 7% percent of ethnic Hungarians living in Romania support their actions.

The two groups are not without intersections and neither of them has a clear platform. As it is publicly stated in political debates, each of these groups corresponds to a political force from Budapest. The moderates are supported by the more progressive fraction of Budapest's political spectrum, while the radicals are backed by the nationalist politicians, especially ex-prime minister Viktor Orbán.

The radicals are famous for displaying an openly anti-Romanian attitude. Their speeches are often full of injurious declarations towards the Romanian values and administration. The radicals have been known to display Hungarian imperial flags and symbols, to attack Romanian flags, to refuse to speak Romanian; they have cultivated separatist sentiments, making strong demands for the full autonomy of some small territories that have ethnic Hungarian majorities. Radicals subscribe to chauvinism and ethnic nationalism.

The moderates distance themselves from the methods of the radicals but not from their major goals. They accept the Romanian values and administration, and some have even held positions in the Romanian government, but they do not consistently distance themselves revanchist views. For instance, in 2004 the moderates leaded by Marko pushed for the display of highly controversial symbols like Statuia Libertatii in Arad, which is a 19th century monument memorializing 13 generals who fought for Hungary; in their millitary campaigns, they murdered 40,000 Romanians. This support caused a national scandal in Romania. Moderates formally distance themselves from chauvinism and ethnic nationalism, although they have never appologized for such actions when they were performed by the radicals.

Relationship with the population

UDMR enjoys a wide electoral support from the ethnic Hungarians living in Romania, with the exception of a considerable number of young voters. However, the younger generation tends to consider UDMR a nationalistic organization advocating a failed 19th century project and incapable of preparoing the Romania's ethnic Hungarians for the new globalized world. The electoral score of UDMR in national elections remains somewhere between 6.1% and 6.6%.

There are no indications that UDMR as a party is supported by any of the ethnic Romanian population. In national elections it has never obtained a percentage higher than the percentage of ethnic Hungarians living in Romania. Some local leaders of UDMR, often with mixed Romanian-Hungarian ethnic identity, have occasionaly obtained small numbers of votes from ethnic Romanians in local and municipal elections. However, such cases are few and highly particular and this has never occurred in national elections.

UDMR is generally seen by Romanians as the carrier of Budapest's revanchist ambitions that are now being redefined to fit the European context. Many ethnic Romanians are irritated by what they perceive as a constant demand for priviliges by ethnic Hungarians.

UDMR is often accused of ethnic cleansing. Between 2000 and 2004 the moderate wing of UDMR successfully pushed for the closing down of Romanian language departments of traditionally Hungarian high schools, in spite of the fact that these departments had existed there for decades. This caused deep frustration among Romanians who felt they were discriminated against on and ethnic basis in their own country, and has resulted in public demonstrations.

Chauvinism and ethnic nationalism have been also contantly used to describe mass media reports regarding various actions of UDMR in Romania.

External links

• Official website