In 1989, on the road towards consenting to multi-party democracy, the ruling party then called the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party held a congress, on which the majority voted to re-form the party as today's Hungarian Socialist Party. However, a minority of diehards chose to go on under the old name. (Since then, there have been a few name changes, but what the Socialists dropped, "Worker", was always part of it.)

While this party adopted some Eurocommunist and progressive rhetoric through the years, it still concerns itself mostly with guarding the good memory of Kádár. (I.e. they get into the news most often when protesting on his birthday or at his grave or defend his 1956 record and such.)

Worse, the party looks like the personal fiefdom of its leader (in office ever since 1989), who gained some quite bad reputation by cozying up to dictators: so for example, during the coup against Gorbachev, he flew to Moscow to be the first to pledge loyalty to the coup leaders; and he got along with ol' Saddam (he was in reality what all other anti-war people were only in the accusations of the warbots).

In recent years, the party had one positive (from my viewpoint positive) campaign of note: that for a referendum against healthcare privatisation a few years ago. However, back then, right-populist Fidesz hijacked that campaign, ultimately leading to a failure of the referendum on turnout. Yet, later on, the Workers' Party did not go out of the way of tactical cooperation with Fidesz and even the far-right on more social-themed campaigns.

In the current elections, the one Workers' Party TV spot I saw was against my liking: they talked about tackling the economic crisis by way of protectionism, and that in nationalist tones -- were they trying to steal votes from Jobbik?...

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}