Exploiting anti-Gypsy fears and enduring unemployment in villages hit hard by the economic crisis, Jobbik entered parliament for the first time in 2010 with nearly 17 percent of the vote. Recent polls, however, show its support has slipped to 13 percent among likely voters.

So after months of focusing its political energy in the legislature, Jobbik has renewed its campaign against Gypsies, also know as Roma, with rallies in villages across the country.

Jobbik lawmakers and some 600 supporters, including 50 in camouflage gear and military boots, demonstrated Saturday evening against “Gypsy terror,” in Hejoszalonta, a small village 160 km east of Budapest, the capital.

The protest was sparked by the March 22 murder of a local woman. Two of her Roma tenants and a third suspect have been apprehended by police.

Hungary’s Roma make up around 6-to-8 percent of the country’s population of 10 million and are among its poorest and least-educated residents, facing discrimination at all levels, from education to employment to health care.

Jobbik’s rise was aided by the Hungarian Guard, a uniformed group with several thousand members that held several marches in rural towns to “protect” the non-Roma and intimidate Romas.

The Guard was disbanded by the courts in 2009 and Prime Minister Viktor Orban vowed before the 2010 April election to enforce the ban.

Hejoszalonta Mayor Jozsef Anderko and several residents acknowledged petty thefts in the village — what the far-right calls “Gypsy crime” — but said relations between the 850 villagers, including 350 Roma, were generally good.

Jobbik’s march over the weekend did achieve one result — it drove a new wedge among neighbors.  Roma women in Hejoszalonta said they would start a petition seeking the dismissal of a non-Roma local kindergarten teacher who took part in the torch-lit march.

“Ninety percent of the children in the kindergarten are Gypsies and after this she simply isn’t fit to take care of them,” said Balogh.