Hungarian Two-tailed Dog Party

Hungarian Two-tailed Dog Party
Magyar Kétfarkú Kutya Párt
Leader Gergely Kovács[1]
Founded January 2006
8 September 2014 (registered)
Ideology Absurdism
Satire
Joke party
National Assembly
0 / 199
European Parliament
0 / 21
County Assemblies
0 / 419
Website
mkkp.hu

The Hungarian Two-tailed Dog Party (Hungarian: Magyar Kétfarkú Kutya Párt; MKKP) is a joke political party in Hungary. It was founded in Szeged in 2006, but registered as an official political party in 2014. The party's main activity is street art – graffiti, stencils and various posters – parodying the political elite.

Political activity

Foundation, 2006 and 2010 elections

All of the electoral candidates were called István Nagy ("Stephen Large", Hungarian equivalent of the English John Smith) during the 2006 national and local elections.[2] The name was chosen because Nagy is the single most common surname in Hungary, and István is a very common first name.

An example of Two-tailed Dog Party fake political posters: this poster is captioned "For a smaller Hungary!", in reference to Hungarian irredentists supporting the revocation of the Trianon Treaty.

The Two-tailed Dog Party was not a registered political party until 2014, but planned to participate in the 2006 elections. The party made the following promises: eternal life, world peace, one work day per week, two sunsets a day (in various colours), smaller gravitation, free beer and low taxes. Other promises include building a mountain on the Great Hungarian Plain. The election posters could mainly be seen in Szeged. Most of the posters featured the candidate, István Nagy, who is a two-tailed dog, with inscriptions like "He is so cute, surely he doesn't want to steal".

Dániel Mogács in 2008

The party is on good terms with another joke party, the Fourth Way, which is led by two birds. However, there are some disagreements between them, since Fourth Way plans to abolish bird flu, and this is opposed by the Two-tailed Dog Party, in accord with virus rights principles. On 20 June 2009, the MKKP held a "general" protest with approximately three hundred participants in front of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (KSH) to demand "Tomorrow should be yesterday!", "Look stupid!" and "Disband!" etc. with a slogan that "What do we want? Nothing! When? Never!".[3]

In 2010, the party announced their candidacy for mayor of Budapest with the main slogen "Let everything better!".[4] Campaign slogans include "More everything, less nothing!", "Eternal life, free beer, tax-deduction!" and "We promise anything!".[5] In Erzsébetváros (District VII, Budapest), the mayoral candidate of the party was notable stand-up comedian Dániel Mogács, who has carried out a number of awareness-generating actions during the campaign period, including a surreal interview with television host Olga Kálmán (ATV's Straight Talk).[6] However, neither candidate was able to collect the appropriate number of recommendation slips to participate in the election.[7] According to its detailed economic program, MKKP intended to develop Szeged space station into an interplanetary spaceport, starting Pulis' export to Jamaica. The program also contained environmental elements, such as patching the ozone hole and creation of new species to replace the extinct species. The party also aimed the establishment of trade relations with extraterrestrial life forms and opening a Hungarian restaurant on Mars in order to improve the country's image.[8]

Official party

MKKP & Vastagbőr's billboard in 2015 during the migrant crisis, which also regard the government's stance on Sunday trading clampdown laws as retrograde

Since 2013, the party was trying to finish the official registration process, which new election law made compulsory, in order to start its campaign.[9] The registration was rejected in early 2014, referring to the party's "flippancy".[1] In July 2014, the Supreme Court ruled that there is no objections against registering the party and the registration process may continue.[10] The MKKP was officially registered on 8 September 2014, only 16 minutes before the deadline for nomination of candidates for the 2014 local elections. Thus it prevented the party's participation in the election.[11]

In June 2015, the ruling Third Orbán Government launched a poster campaign during the intensifying European migrant crisis. Their billboard, among others, said "If you come to Hungary, you cannot take the Hungarians' jobs away!".[12] In response, the Two-tailed Dog Party and the Vastagbőr blog ("Thick Skin") jointly called for an "anti-anti-immigration campaign" and collected more than 33 million HUF (tenfold of the expected amount) from supporters[13] to set up around 800 billboards with ironic and funny slogans in Hungarian and English as caricatures of the governments' messages, such as "Sorry about our Prime Minister" and "Feel free to come to Hungary, we already work in England!".[14]

On 4 February 2016, Medián's poll for the first time registered support for the Hungarian Two-tailed Dog Party, which received 1% among the entire population.[15]

The Hungarian Two-tailed Dog Party closely involved in the campaign during the October 2016 migrant quota referendum, mocking the government's anti-immigrant messages and phrases. The party spent €100,000 of voluntary donation from 4,000 people for their posters with satirical slogans, such as "Did you know there's a war in Syria?", "Did you know one million Hungarians want to emigrate to Europe?", "Did you know? The perpetrators in most corruption cases are politicians" and "Did you know? During the Olympics, the biggest danger to Hungarian participants came from foreign competitors". Party leader Gergely Kovács told BBC News that "[...] What we can do is appeal to the millions in Hungary who are upset by the government campaign. We want them to know they are not alone". Thus the party asked the people to vote invalidly.[16] Eventually, 6% of the voters cast a spoiled ballot.[17]

Shortly before the referendum, the party made a mobile app available for download on its website. The app, called "Vote Invalidly", could be used to take a photo of the spoilt votes and publish it. MKKP received a fine of 832,000 Hungarian forints for releasing the app, because publishing a ballot paper is illegal (even though the app published them anonymously).[18]

Street art

Street art illustrating the four color theorem in Budapest

Recently the party has been a strong advocate of freedom of expression and artistic license. This position is expressed by political slogans on walls and pasting posters in Szeged.

The party's main activity is street art – graffiti, stencils and various posters. These are often humorous, while providing stark criticism towards various company policies,[19] the state of Hungarian railroads,[20] imitate stickers of entrepreneurial advertisements,[21] sabotage large billboard signs[22] or provide simple meta-humour.[23] The man behind the party was sued by the Hungarian State Railways for stickers saying "Our trains are deliberately dirty" or "Our trains are deliberately late", but he was not convicted. In 2009 he created a parody of the website Pecs2010.hu – the official site of Pécs as Cultural Capital of Europe in 2010 –, for which he was threatened with legal action but the owners of the original site backed down after the case got publicity.[24]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "Nem lehet Magyar Kétfarkú Kutya Párt a nevünk" (in Hungarian).
  2. ↑ "Örök életet ígér a Kétfarkú Kutya Párt". Origo.hu. 2006-02-06. Retrieved 2015-05-08.
  3. ↑ A semmit követelte röhögve a tüntető tömeg index.hu 2009. június 20.
  4. ↑ http://xpatloop.com/news/budapest_mayoral_candidates_must_try_harder
  5. ↑ http://kutyopressz.blog.hu/2010/08/08/letoltesnyomtatas
  6. ↑ "Gangos házakat ígér anyjának a 7.kerületi polgármester-jelölt + videó". ATV.hu. 2010-08-28. Retrieved 2015-08-04.
  7. ↑ "A Kétfarkú Kutya Kulturális Közhasznú Egyesület adatai a 2010-es önkormányzati választás oldalán". Országos Választási Iroda. 2010-11-29. Retrieved 2015-08-04.
  8. ↑ "A Magyar Kétfarkú Kutya Párt választási programja. 2010.". mkkp.hu. Retrieved 2015-08-04.
  9. ↑ Margit Feher. "Hungary's 2-Tailed Dog Party Seeks Ballot Space".
  10. ↑ "Kúria: be kell jegyezni a Magyar Kétfarkú Kutya Pártot" (in Hungarian).
  11. ↑ "Rossz viccnek tűnik, ahogy bejegyezték a Kétfarkú Kutya Pártot". Origo.hu. 2014-09-08. Retrieved 2015-05-08.
  12. ↑ Német, Tamás (2015-06-04). "Megvan a kormány menekültellenes kampányának két újabb szlogenje". Index. Retrieved 2015-08-04.
  13. ↑ "Újabb plakátokat készít a Kétfarkú Kutyapárt és a Vastagbőr". 444.hu. 2015-07-14. Retrieved 2015-05-08.
  14. ↑ "'Come to Hungary - we're already working in London' says pro-immigration billboard campaign". Telegraph.co.uk. 2015-06-17. Retrieved 2016-02-04.
  15. ↑ "Sajátosan reagálta le a Kétfarkú Kutyapárt, hogy a Medián már méri őket". Heti Világgazdaság. 2016-02-04. Retrieved 2016-02-04.
  16. ↑ "Hungary poster campaign pokes fun at migrant referendum". BBC News. 2016-09-10. Retrieved 2016-09-19.
  17. ↑ "Hungary's Referendum On Refugee Resettlement Is Overwhelming — But Invalid". npr.org. October 3, 2016. Retrieved October 3, 2016.
  18. ↑ "Jobbikos javaslatra 832 ezer forintra büntette az NVB a Kétfarkú Kutyákat". index.hu. October 7, 2016. Retrieved October 8, 2016.
  19. ↑ "We're sorry about the climate change."
  20. ↑ "Our trains are deliberately dirty."
  21. ↑ http://www.mkkp.hu/vallalkozok.html
  22. ↑ http://www.mkkp.hu/oriasplakat.html
  23. ↑ "What are we doing?" "Disguising ourselves as posters."
  24. ↑ Lenyomta a Magyar Kétfarkú Kutya Párt a Pécs2010-et
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