Declaration of Liberal Principles

As a result of the 2010 parliamentary elections Fidesz-KDNP party union achieved a two-third majority with 53 % of the voters voting for them. The outcome of the elections mirrored the people’s disappointment in the previous years’ governmental politics, and the hope that a new government will be able to show the country a way out of the economic and social crisis.

The period since has proven that this hope was in vain. The Fidesz-KDNP government has been abusing the trust of the voters: has adopted an unstable and uncertain economy policy, consequently cuts the state’s most important institutions, issues laws endangering legal certainty, brings the media under total control, mocks the authority of the presidential office, to the head of independent state institutions it seats its own party soldiers, attempts to eliminate its political and ideological opponents by actions reminding of conceptual methods, and without being authorized began to one-sidedly reform the constitution.

In 1989 the republic’s democratic frames and institutions had to be established. Today their protection and the tradition of the European liberal democracy are at stake. Hungary has diverged from this tradition, while the picture of an authoritative, closed up country drifting to the periphery of Europe is beginning to be created. For the formation of the country’s fate all political participants of the past twenty years are responsible irrespectively of weather they take this responsibility, or not.

The Free People for Hungary – Liberal Party (Szabad Emberek Magyarországért – Liberális Párt) bearing all this in mind stands up for political liberalism, liberal politics based on moral values, and their consistent and authentic representation that offers alternative against the present governments paternal politics built on lies and deception, winking at nationalism and xenophobia. We are deeply convinced that the presence of the political liberalism – a social and future prospective based on such liberal values that may fill the society with rightful and well-founded hope, offers perspective and forms the roots of a common action – is inevitable from the point of the country’s future.

With this belief SZEMA – Liberal Party is working for a Hungary in which both politics and the everyday life are guided by the theory and practice of freedom enjoyed with responsibility. We declare that one’s freedom extends so far as it does not violate another one’s freedom. We see individual and social responsibility as the determining pillars of the social and the political life.

The operation of the state is based on transparency, computability, and the legal certainty, respecting the constitutional order that is spread out to the economy, the public institutions, and to each and every citizen.

We are committed to the values and institutions of the liberal democracy, the republic as a form of government, the constitutional structure, to private property and market economy.

We announce plural democracy, in which between ideologically and politically opposing parties and movements there is a constant and continuous negotiation, a search for a consensus bearing the welfare of the society in mind.

We take a stand on the consistent separation of the church and the government.

We consider fundamental the equality of all rights and chances with regard to both citizens, and ethnical, religious and cultural groups. Any initiative, measure or law that differentiates citizens on racial, religious, cultural or any other basis, is unacceptable.

We hold that individual performance, knowledge, self-care, social dynamism and mobility are of great importance. We stand up for those who have come to live on the periphery of society. Social solidarity for us means one with the protection of human dignity.

We wish to have an open society, and we support cultural colorfulness and diversity.

We are devoted to the European integration.

January 2011