ABSTRACT
Like Poland, Hungary chose to introduce a mandatory but privately managed second pillar as part of its overall pension program. The Hungarian case reveals both the strength and limitations of opposition groups in general, and unions in particular. This chapter begins with the distributional consequences of the privatization period, and the creation of relative winners and losers. In the ten years from 1988 to 1998, Hungary had three different and quite unique governments: a Communist regime that survived until 1990; a right of center government led by Jozsef Antall from 1990-1994; and a government made-up of reformed ex-communists and pro-market liberal democrats from 1994-1998. In the case of Hungary, the onus of action lay with those opposed to the creation of mandatory, private pension insurance following the conversion of the Ministry of Welfare (MOW) in 1996. Hungarian unions, however, and the Magyar Szakszervezetek Országos Szövetsége (MSZOSZ) in particular, suffered from too many internal cleavages to be a truly effective advocate.
