Community service can have political value in terms of votes

The question of community service is significant not only in terms of employment policy, but because of political reasons, too. Since 2012 there has been a basic change in the domestic social system and the main policy has become that the government requires community service in exchange for social solidarity. As a result the number of community employees has been increased, while the workers have been paid fewer than the minimum wage. As Napi.hu reports, Policy Agenda examined the connection between community service and political profit-making.

According to Policy Agenda, the opposition had been criticising the system of community service while it could still not offer any real alternative. The opposition states that the employees are exploited by the government and that they will rebel against the authority with their votes and by supporting the change of government – writes the evaluation of the research institute.

After the 2014 elections the number of supporters of left-wing parties has not grown in the towns with a population less than 20,000, while the support of Fidesz-KDNP and Jobbik has increased. Moreover, based on the individual examinations of the towns, it is clear that the altogether list of MSZP-Együtt-DK-PM-LMP performed the worse in villages having an economically more difficult situation. Namely, they could not reach those being in the largest trouble because of their social status and who could traditionally constitute the basis of the left.

So there is a significant connection between the economically disadvantaged villages and the extent of community service.

Villages involved in community service

With the help of the governmental databases Policy Agenda checked the numbers: to what degree their hypothesis is proved to be true, if they examine the villages considerably involved in community service, based on the electoral results.

The villages are arranged in 3 groups:

• In the first one belong the villages where the number of the community service employees is below 10% of the working age (15-64) population
• In the second group belong the villages with employees between 10 and 20% of the working age population. This includes the villages strongly concerned with the community service. This is where – obviously differently in every region – 17-34% work in community service out of all employees.
• In the villages which are classified as the members of the third group, 20% of the population work in the community service system.

If we transfer these categories into political votes we can see that 690,000 voters are living in villages which are strongly or really strongly concerned with community service. This is the 17% of people living in small towns, which mean a fundamental influential power.

Does the vote of the community service really help?

They also examined whether there is a noticeable difference between the situation of being concerned with the community service and the support of the political parties in the 2014 elections and the 2016 referendum. In villages lightly involved in community service 42,3 % of the electorates voted for the national list of Fidesz-KDNP in 2016. This was 49,7 % in villages which are strongly concerned. Namely, the ruling party got 7,4% more support here than anywhere else. And if we look at only the very strongly concerned villages, there they got 53,1% support.

We can also see a significant difference during the fall referendum regarding the valid votes between the “community service villages” and lightly concerned villages. The latter had 40,9% while the former 43,1%. There is also a difference here, but not as significant. Same happens in the case of the strongly concerned villages: it is 43,5%, which does not show the significant difference of two years ago.

National data shows that in 2014 the small towns involved in community service served as a heartland for Fidesz, but in 2016 they cannot mobilise this layer according to their purposes.

We can see that Fidesz performed 8,4% better in every county in the community service regions than anywhere else in 2014. However, the valid votes from this layer were only 3% more than in other cases.

Conclusions

Two things can follow this, which requires a different script both from the government and the opposition. It is unquestionable that the community service can mean political power in terms of obtaining votes. Even in the circle of those who are directly concerned with the system and even if the opposition looks at it as the tool of exploitation. This tool worked for the government parties in 2014. However, at the fall referendum it did not work. And according to Policy Agenda, this can mean two things:

• Since 2014 Fidesz has lost some of its power in the villages concerned with community service, which can have consequences in the 2018 elections. Individual positions may be endangered.
• These voters cannot be used automatically for everything. Just because the government parties want to do a political action, they cannot move the community service voters blindly.

According to the third conclusion of Policy Agenda, it is completely clear that, for the people whose only income is community service, “communal work is not good” is not a political answer. They would also know what they get if they are not given communal work anymore. Neither the government parties nor the opposition can offer an answer, and neither do they know how to explain that.

Photo: MTI

Copy editor: bm

Source: Napi.hu