Unity Party (Hungary) Explained

See also: Unity Party (Hungary, 2009).

Unity Party
Native Name:Egységes Párt
Native Name Lang:hu
Founder:István Bethlen
Merger:KNEP (partial) and OKGFP
Headquarters:Budapest, Hungary
Position:
Right-wing[1]

Far-right
Flag:Flag of Party of National Unity Hungary.svg
Country:Hungary

The Unity Party (Hungarian: Egységes Párt), officially the Catholic-Protestant Farmers, Smallholders, and Civic Party or Christian Farmers, Smallholders and Civic Party, was the ruling party of Kingdom of Hungary from 1922 to 1944.

It was founded in early 1922, and in the same year they won a electoral landslide in the parliamentary election.[2] Initially, the party was conservative and agrarian but in the early 1930s its fascist faction grew to become the largest, and shortly after they established a militia.[3] The main leader of the fascist faction was Gyula Gömbös, who served as the prime minister from 1932 to 1936. When he came to power, the party was renamed to National Unity Party (Hungarian: Nemzeti Egység Pártja|links=no).

Gömbös declared the party's intention to achieve "total control of the nation's social life".[4] In the 1935 Hungarian Election, Gömbös promoted the creation of a "unitary Hungarian nation with no class distinctions".[5] The party won a huge majority of the seats of the Hungarian parliament in the Hungarian election of May 1939.[6] It won 72 percent of the parliament's seats and won 49 percent of the popular vote in the election.[7] This was a major breakthrough for the far-right in Hungary.[7] The party promoted nationalist propaganda and some of its members sympathized with the Nazi Arrow Cross Party.[7] In 1939, the party was renamed to the Party of Hungarian Life (Hungarian: Magyar Élet Pártja|links=no).

It was also called "the Government Party" since it was the governing party of the Kingdom of Hungary during the existence of the Horthy era.[8] A faction of the most pro-Nazi members led by the party's former leader Béla Imrédy split from the party October 1940 to form the (Magyar Megújulás Pártja) that sought to explicitly "solve" the "Jewish Problem."

Electoral results

ElectionVotesSeatsRankGovernmentLeader
%±pp+/−
1922623,20138.2%38.2 1401stIstván Bethlen
1926482,08642.2%4.0 211stIstván Bethlen
1931603,57640.0%2.2 121stIstván Bethlen
1935879,47444.6%4.6 151stGyula Gömbös
19391,824,57349.5%4.9 171stPál Teleki

Notes and References

  1. Sthttps://mult-kor.hu/ki-volt-grof-bethlen-istvan-miniszterelnok-20161005
  2. Gregory Curtis Ference. Chronology of 20th-century eastern European history. Gale Research, Inc., 1994. Pp. 226.
  3. Philip Morgan. Fascism in Europe, 1919-1945. London, England, UK: Routledge, 2003. Pp. 76-77.
  4. Philip Morgan. Fascism in Europe, 1919-1945. London, England, UK: Routledge, 2003. Pp. 76.
  5. F. L. Carsten. The rise of fascism. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California, USA: University of California Press, 1982. Pp. 173.
  6. Peter F. Sugar, Péter Hanák. A History of Hungary. First paperback edition. Bloomington, Indiana, USA: Indiana University Press, 1994. Pp. 341.
  7. Georgi Karasimeonov. Cleavages, parties, and voters: studies from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Romania. Greenwood Publishing Group, 1999. p. 70.
  8. Book: Payne, Stanley G.. Stanley G. Payne

    . A History of Fascism, 1914-1945. Stanley G. Payne. Routledge. 1996. 0203501322.

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