2.3 Cultural policy objectives Since 1990, when the first free
elections took place, the pendulum of cultural policy priorities
swung to the right and to the left at four year intervals; this
regularity was broken in 2006 when, for the first time, the same
"side" was re-elected. Some of the principles correspond to the
clichés associated with the political notions of "right" and
"left": conservative administrations put greater emphasis on
national heritage and pride and on the cultural links with
Hungarians living in the neighbouring countries. A marked re-
centralisation process occurred between 1998 and 2002, during
the "centre-right" administration. It was during this period
that culture enjoyed the highest relative ranking among overall
priorities of the government in the past 30-40 years. The schism
between the two "sides" reached its peak at the 2002
Parliamentary elections and flared up again in the autumn of
2006; the efforts to shelter culture from political and
ideological influences have not yielded