Prime Minister Viktor Orban's Fidesz-Christian Democrat alliance had approved a new voting system in November to require the nation's voters to register before the 2014 elections. That plan, however, was shot down by the nation's top court.

"Mindful of the practice of the European Court of Human Rights, the Constitutional Court has established that for those with Hungarian residency the registration requirement represents an undue restriction on voting rights and is therefore unconstitutional," the court said.

This ruling applies only to domestic voters, however, and the court added that voter registration for Hungarians living overseas was justified.

Voter registration was to be a transparent US-inspired voter suppression measure, justified with virtually nonexistent voter fraud in a well-working system. Earlier, prime minister Orbán suggested that his party with its qualified majority in parliament could bypass Constitutional Court objection by implanting voter registration into the Constitution itself. However, Fidesz's parliamentary faction leader now swiped even that off the table, claiming there won't be voter registration by the 2014 elections.

What's noteworthy here is the emergence of disunity within the top echelons of ruling Fidesz. The party used to be in total control of a closely-knit cabal of about a dozen people who never showed disagreement in public. There have been reports of internal conflicts over the past few years, but I dismissed them as opposition wishful thinking giving too much credibility to rumours. However, since the start of Fidesz's democrature in 2010, a number of inner cabal members retired from party politics, and took up other top jobs during the totalitarian power grab over all institutions.

Now, (to me) unexpectedly, they started to obstruct Orbán's plans. In this case, two of them, the current (figurehead) President of the [abolished] Republic (who succeeded Hungary's zu Googleberg) and a member of the Constitutional Court played a key role. And the guy who announced that voter registration is off the table for now was at one time treated as Orbán's crown price, then was sidelined as a major, and only returned on the national stage earlier this year after one of Orbán's foot soldiers proved a failure even on Fidesz's warped terms.

Does this mean Fidesz is collapsing? If polls are to be believed, certainly not. Does this mean that at least democracy with checks and balances is saved? I don't know. I feel I am only doing (can only do) Kremlinology.

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