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When the opposition destroyed the furniture of the Hungarian Parliament – photos, video
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After the so-called “election by handkerchief”, the opposition completely destroyed the furniture of the Hungarian National Assembly on December 13, 1904, and even attacked police officers trying to stop them.
Serving the interests of Hungary and the Monarchy
In some countries, for example, in Ukraine, it is quite common that MPs fight not only with words but also with their fists. Here is a video on this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zgTl6-KWqg
In Hungary, such things never happened even though
in 1912 an MP tried to kill Speaker István Tisza with his revolver.
Interestingly, the jury of Budapest cleared him from all charges, which angered the general public. By then, István Tisza was already for almost three decades in the front-row of the Hungarian politics. He was appointed PM for the first time in 1903. The most important point in his political agenda was to crush the filibuster of the opposition in the Hungarian parliament, which hindered the acceptance of, for example, the state budget or the new economic agreement with Austria. Filibuster means that MPs spoke for hours, which made decision-making almost impossible.
Since István Tisza felt that the conflicts among countries of Europe are inevitable, he wanted to strengthen Hungary and the Monarchy. However, to do so, he needed a parliament that, for example, accepts bills of increasing the number of the military and provides the needed financial support for its modernisation. Thus, he sometimes broke the rules of the Parliament because of which many members of even his own party turned against him.
The government unified the fragmented opposition
In November 1904, Tisza’s party submitted a bill aiming to
modify the rules of the Parliament.
For example, they would have restricted the time an MP can talk. Moreover, filibustering MPs could have been walked out from the sitting by the police. He knew that the bill has no chance to be accepted because of filibustering, so after he finished his speech, Dezső Perczel, the speaker of the House waved his handkerchief and government MPs stood up. This act meant a ‘Yes’ vote then so the speaker, in the midst of an ear-splitting tumult, declared that the new regulations had been adopted by the house, and produced a royal message suspending the session.
