February 13, 2006

Miner Problem for Fidesz Campaign Poster

A dejected-looking "unemployed miner" featured on a campaign poster for opposition party Fidesz turns out to not only have a job, but two. According to Népszabadság, the face that Fidesz wanted to put to the country's so-so unemployment record belongs to one Ernő Galambos, who runs a trailer rental business in Budapest's District XVI while doing the occasional bit of modeling on the side. Apparently, Fidesz hired him via a modeling agency, gave him a hard hat, told him to think "unemployed" and then stuck his mug next to data from the National Employment Service made-up to look even grimmer than Galambos.

The revelation has come as a rare nugget of good news to the ruling Socialists (MSZP), who have used Galambos's true identity as a stick with which to attack the statistics offered in the poster. More specifically, the MSZP says that the data incorrectly include among the "unemployed" everyone who has participated in an unemployment program, as well as "inactive" workers, rather than just people who have been laid off or fired, for example the person who decided to hire a Budapest model rather than just going out and finding an actual unemployed miner for the Fidesz poster.

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