If I Were a Hungarian Politician: Why Democracy Needs Quarterly Reviews
From Ballots to Benchmarks—Manifesto for Rebuilding Accountability in Public Office
What if elections weren’t true accountability—but the illusion of it?
This manifesto challenges the comforting rituals of representative democracy and asks harder questions about performance of elected representatives, power, and public trust. Drawing from Hungary’s recent political record, it exposes how even measurable successes can conceal deeper failures—and offers a bold framework for holding elected officials to real, ongoing standards. This isn’t a call for revolution. It’s a call for results.
A Manifesto from Inside the System—Without Illusions
If I were a politician I would start with this manifesto for accountability.
Not because it’s comfortable. Not because it’s clever. But because it’s honest about a system we all defend publicly while often questioning privately.
Let me be clear: this is not a manifesto for a revolution. It’s not an act of idealism. It’s not designed to go viral.
This is what I’d say if I were a politician who no longer believed in the fantasy that elections equal accountability (at least not enough), or that slogans equal vision. I would write this knowing that most people are tired—not inspired.
That institutions protect themselves.
That citizens have more skepticism than hope.
But I’d also write this because some things are too broken to manage—and too important to abandon.
So this manifesto doesn’t promise fast change. It doesn’t pretend to offer immediate reform. It doesn’t flatter citizens into believing they have more power than they do. It exists for another reason:
To show that one can enter politics without surrendering independent thought.
To prove that critique isn’t disloyalty—it’s integrity.
And to begin rebuilding a language of democratic accountability that means something again.
If I were a politician, I wouldn’t run on this manifesto for accountability.
I would be held to it.
Preamble for The Democratic Accountability of Elected Representatives Manifesto
We, the undersigned, reject the complacency that democracy, simply by having elected representatives, is functioning. We reject the idea that elections, slogans, and symbolic participation constitute the only true public power. We reject the idea that the elected representative is accountable only every four years. And we reject the delusion that leaders can govern without precise goals, deliver without metrics, and rule without consequence.
This is not a call for revolution. It’s a call for performance. For results.
For a representative democracy that works like the systems we already trust: competitive markets, real-time dashboards, empowered shareholders.
We demand a democracy that performs—or stops calling itself one. Because the alternative to non-performing democracy isn’t autocracy—it’s structural reform.
Principles of Democratic Performance by Elected Representatives
To ensure true democratic accountability, elected representatives must meet clear standards of performance—guided by the following five core principles.
1. Citizens Are Shareholders, Not Spectators
Citizens must have a binding voice in goal-setting, budget priorities, and public leadership. Voting every four years isn’t power—it’s the illusion of power.
2. Set the Goal, or Lose the Job
Political parties and representatives must publish binding, measurable mandates and effective goal setting upon election—and face regular public audits on their progress quarterly.
3. Performance Must Be Public
SMART framework, government and elected representative KPIs, budgets, and delivery reports must be published like earnings calls—clearly, comparably, and accessibly.
4. Recall Is a Right, Not a Riot
Citizens must be able to withdraw political executives between elections through a structured recall mechanism in case of poor performance.
5. Independent Oversight, with Teeth
Oversight institutions must be funded, autonomous, and immune to political interference—like external auditors in a corporation. The work of these institution should build on citizens control and feedback.
Just as successful businesses rely on clear goals, transparent reporting, and regular performance reviews to create value and maintain trust, democratic governance requires the same rigor. Without adopting a accountability mindset, politics remains a game of narratives rather than real outcomes.
Hungary: A Case in Point
To illustrate how even measurable achievements can mask deeper structural issues, Hungary provides a revealing case.
To ensure fairness, I’ve deliberately selected a clearly measurable, publicly stated commitment by the current ruling conservative party alliance (Fidesz–KDNP), which has held uninterrupted power with a supermajority for four consecutive terms. It would be nearly impossible to identify comparable, trackable commitments from the opposition as a whole.
Over the past 15 years, the ruling coalition has made numerous promises—most of them vague or lacking measurable targets. However, one notable exception stands out: the explicit commitment to create 1 million new jobs within 10 years.
And on this point, they delivered. The job creation target was met within the pledged timeframe—an achievement in its own right, particularly given how rare it is for political actors to make, let alone fulfill, such quantifiable commitments.
But here, the tenth man rule becomes relevant—that principle that when nine people agree, it becomes the responsibility of the tenth to ask hard questions.
So, we must ask:
At what cost was this achieved?
Were there structural side effects?
What were the trade-offs?
Without attempting an exhaustive response to the earlier questions, the list below outlines key costs, structural side effects, and trade-offs observed during the implementation of Hungary’s employment and reindustrialization agenda—pursued under the current ruling coalition:
2010: Launch of the "reindustrialization" strategy under Prime Minister Orbán, prioritizing investment in manufacturing and production sectors. Hungary's "reindustrialization" was marketed as sovereignty-building — yet paradoxically, it outsourced economic resilience to foreign boardrooms. In trying to escape IMF-era austerity, the country may have traded financial dependency for industrial servitude. While “reindustrialization” boosted job quantity in manufacturing, it often resulted in job quality issues, skill stagnation, regional disparities, and vulnerability to external economic forces, limiting sustainable long-term employment growth.
2011: Intensive use of government-mandated workfare programs to reduce official unemployment, often substituting for long-term employment policies. While workfare programs lowered official unemployment stats, they masked deeper structural problems, encouraged a cycle of precarious, low-skill jobs, and diverted focus from sustainable employment policies.
2012: Increase in the standard VAT rate from 25% to 27%. Raising VAT to the world’s highest rate didn’t just boost government revenue — it quietly choked off the true driver of jobs: consumer spending. Sometimes, the most powerful employment policy isn’t how much you spend, but what you choose to tax. The steep VAT increase hit the heart of the SME sector hardest, undermining competitiveness. It became a hidden tax on SME lifeblood, shrinking profits, complicating compliance, and pushing some toward informality—all while shrinking the very customer base SMEs rely on to thrive and grow.
2015–2024: Hungary recorded the highest annual inflation rate in the EU in five separate years within a decade. Hungary’s chronic inflation wasn’t just a number—it was a slow bleed on job stability, SME resilience, and real livelihoods, making every economic plan a moving target. High inflation wasn’t just an economic headline — it quietly drained people’s real life quality, squeezing budgets, futures, and even health, while governments scrambled to keep up.
2015–2024: Median real incomes declined, as real wage growth failed to keep pace with inflation. Between 2015 and 2024, median real incomes shrank because wage growth couldn’t keep up with inflation. This wasn’t just a numbers game — it meant many households faced a decline in purchasing power, struggling to maintain their lifestyles despite working more or earning nominally more. When wages lag behind prices, people don’t just lose money — they lose security, opportunity, and hope for upward mobility. Half of the Hungarians among the worse earners in the EU.
2020–2024: Continuous devaluation of the Hungarian forint (HUF) against major global currencies. The government communication on keeping the local currency is great for the country narrative decoded means it is in the interest of exporting large companies to keep the forint, and postponing euro. So the weakening currency is boosting exports revenues on paper, but for everyday Hungarians and the backbone SMEs, it quietly meant shrinking wallets, squeezed profits, and a fog of financial uncertainty.
2022: Hungary’s preferential tax scheme claims to support small entrepreneurs, but its design tells a different story. After the 2022 KATA (Itemized Tax for Small Taxpayers) reform, over 80% of former users were excluded, losing access to one of the only affordable, simplified tax options. Unlike regional peers, Hungary offers no real path for part-timers, freelancers, or side-hustlers—just hard limits and dead ends. With one of the lowest VAT exemption thresholds in the EU, most SMEs hit complexity before they hit scale.
2022–2024: The public debt-to-GDP ratio worsened, especially in the post-pandemic period. Debt piling up after the pandemic isn’t just a fiscal statistic — it quietly narrows the government’s room to maneuver, potentially leaving people and businesses to fend for themselves when they need help most.
2025: The job market is increasingly defined by low-skill, low-wage employment, reflecting a preference for low-cost labor over high-value job creation. The data coming from the largest job search portal in Hungary, tells the story. 72% of listings require less than 3 years of experience, only 0.4% of listing need over 10 years experience.
It’s no coincidence that many of the trade-offs, hidden costs, and side effects discussed above show up clearly in the data. What was sold as stability often came at the expense of resilience — and the numbers reflect it.
Far from painting a success story, the below Key Performance Indicator scorecard reveals the Janus-faced reality of Hungary’s recent economic trajectory.
The overall picture does not look like great governance performance isn’t?
On the positive side, Hungary ranks among the top performers in reducing unemployment in three out of five years, fulfilling a major and visible policy objective.
In 2023, Hungary jumped to the top of the regional rankings in GDP growth and household consumption—likely due to a bounce-back effect following a sharp economic decline in 2022. But this rebound needs context: in the prior year, Hungary ranked near the bottom in nominal GDP growth and performed the worst in household consumption.
Even with the 2023 bounce, Hungary ranked only 7th in GDP per capita based on Purchasing Power Parity (PPP)—suggesting that headline growth figures may not fully reflect deeper structural competitiveness.
On the negative side, Hungary consistently ranks near the bottom of the regional table in several core areas, including inflation, currency stability, and public debt.
Looking at the average annual rankings—a blunt but still informative indicator of overall performance—Hungary only approaches the regional average in 2023. In all other years, its performance remains volatile and uneven.
The average ranking scores reveal at least a below-average performance. However, beyond the rankings themselves, the scorecard highlights a deeper methodological issue: the risk of oversimplification. Without granular, indicator-level analysis, flat rankings can obscure structural weaknesses, distort trade-offs, and reward volatility over consistency.
This reinforces the broader need for multi-dimensional, transparent, and context-sensitive assessment tools—especially when evaluating long-term governance and political accountability.
Even when long-term, measurable commitments are technically fulfilled, they should not be viewed in isolation. Success on paper can still raise concerns when broader trade-offs, side effects, and systemic costs are ignored.
Governments often prefer siloed metrics, because isolated successes are easier to communicate and politicize. But jobs can be created in many ways, and not all are sustainable or beneficial in the long term. Some may come with high inflation, stagnant or decreasing wages, or increased debt.
This underscores the need for a more integrated, outcome-oriented approach—grounded in clear, publicly accountable KPIs that reflect not just quantity, but quality of governance.
No Goals: Campaign promises are vague. Concrete, measurable political mandates are rare to nonexistent.
No performance review: Power is held between elections with little transparency or structured citizen review.
No citizen power: Experiments like participatory budgeting in Budapest are hopeful but limited in scope.
And Hungary is not a unique in this.
It’s a familiar template.
Accountability Isn’t Radical—It’s the Minimum
In politics, accountability has become a formality.
Leaders face no real consequences for non-performance—only narrative consequences, easily manipulated through media, timing, and emotion.
In Hungary, we’ve seen this codified:
Oversight bodies weakened.
Public procurement metrics created, then ignored.
Citizens offered symbolic engagement, not structural influence.
Imagine a CEO who could miss every target, ignore board oversight, and rewrite their job description mid-year. That’s what politics allows—without question.
We don’t need idealism. We need infrastructure:
Pre-election mandates with KPIs.
Quarterly citizen audits.
Independent citizen-led review boards.
Legal, mid-cycle recall mechanisms.
This is not radical. It’s normal everywhere else.
Demanding Structural Reform
We call for:
Mandatory objective setting like the S.M.A.R.T. (Specific-Measurable-Achievable-Relevant-Timely) framework.
Mandatory political KPIs before each election, ratified publicly.
Citizen-led quarterly review boards, randomly selected and legally binding.
Open data infrastructure at national and local levels.
Constitutional right to recall representatives between elections.
Performance audits by citizens and independent third parties, published annually.
Conclusion: The Cost of Inaction
Democracy without performance is not a flawed system. It is a failing one. But democracy isn’t failing because it’s wrong. It’s failing because we stopped demanding results.
This manifesto isn’t naïve enough to think reform will come quickly. But it’s grounded enough to know it won’t come at all if we don’t start with a sharper set of expectations.
If I were a politician, this wouldn’t be a campaign.
It would be a contract.
With real consequences.
We’ve inherited democratic rituals.
Now we need democratic results.
Disagree? Good. I don’t write to be right—I write to be tested. Bring your Tenth Man view, your sharpest counterpoint, or even a quiet doubt—so long as it builds on data. The most useful critique is often the one that unsettles my own thinking.
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