Hungary will hold elections in one week, and a real hardcore far-right party (BNP's Hungarian ally Jobbik) looks set to receive double digits, so I had a knot in the stomach about what they will defile streets with. But so far, there was nothing racist or xenophobic on their posters (only threatening talk about the People's Fist and such towards the government).

In earlier elections, defiling others' posters has been a far-right speciality, unfortunately. Particularly bad were the 2002 elections, when practically all giant posters of the liberal party in Budapest were smeared with anti-semitic slogans in a timespan of days.

There is actually a law against defiling or removing other parties' posters, but the practice is common even among party activists. Just this past week, a Jobbik activist was captured in the act of removing a cardboard poster of another party, with half a dozen in the hold of his car already. (I note that Jobbik's own cardboard posters in my town, hanging on makeshift bars put on electric masts, appear to be illegal. But there was never much control of this, either.)

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