Liberal democracy in Hungary: the end of history or the new beginning?

01.07.2020 

From 2010 on, the world press has been relentless in depicting the crisis of the liberal democracy in Hungary, levelling direct accusations at Viktor Orbán, the country’s prime minister. Thus, it is Hungary that is most commonly referred to as an illiberal democracy. However, back in 1997 when Fareed Zakaria first coined the term in his article for “Foreign Affairs”, he definitely had other countries in mind. It is safe to assume that neither Budapest nor Viktor Orbán were on his list. 

Nevertheless, it is exactly Orbán who has excelled in putting the concept of an illiberal democracy into practice, without concealing or having the slightest compunction about it. In one of his most scandalous speeches delivered in the summer 2014, the Hungarian leader put it bluntly by saying, ‘Today we have to acknowledge the fact that democracy does not necessarily need to be liberal’. Having said that, Viktor Orbán was quick to provide a further clarification, ‘Even if the state is not liberal, it is nevertheless capable of being democratic’. In that very same speech made at the 25th Bálványos Summer Free University in the Romanian town of Băile Tușnad, Orbán several times mentioned the year of 2010 as a starting point for a new, apparently illiberal Hungary. From then onward Viktor Orbán has indeed been consistently establishing the illiberal democracy in Hungary. His critics insist on a different term for it, the one that has nothing in common with democracy. 

 The latest wave of aspersions cast on Hungary on the part of liberal and democratic community came in the wake of the Hungarian government efforts to contain the spread of the coronavirus disease by introducing the state of emergency, which was eventually lifted on 16th June. The truth is that Orbán’s cabinet technically received an additional authority to govern the country issuing decrees that had the power of law and had neither the duration of validity nor required any prolongation from the National Assembly.

It is still open to debate whether this really was an additional authority and the period of unlimited power concentrated in Viktor Orbán’s hands. How would one then characterize the last 10 years of Hungary’s political development, starting from 2010, when Orbán assumed the office of prime minister and his ruling bloc Fidesz – Hungarian Civic Alliance has been running the country and maintain the supermajority in the parliament? In other words, was Orbán in real need of any additional authority given the fact that he effectively wields unlimited power in the country?

Such “stability” provided by Hungary’s top political tiers as well as inordinate attention to Viktor Orbán’s regime pose us a real risk of overlooking those changes in the country’s political landscape that have occurred in recent years, standing the chance of setting a new trend for the next 5 or 7 years. It is not improbable that this might be the trend of the liberal democracy of which Viktor Orbán already availed himself in the beginning of the 1990s and which led him into big-league politics. 

There is solid reason to make such a bold assumption, since it is closely linked to the young Hungarian political force called Momentum, which is at times compared to the ruling party of Fidesz and its leaders back at the very beginning of their political career. Last year Fidesz was followed by Momentum as the most popular party with the Hungarian voters. Truth be told, the gap between the first and the second place seemed insurmountable – a staggering 40%. However, a mere 2 years ago Momentum could not exceed the electoral threshold of 5% at the 2018 parliamentary elections. Moreover, a far-right party Jobbik took a clear second place, having won 26 seats in the parliament, which had been the party’s best election result in its entire history.  

The 2018 elections delivered a heavy blow to the liberal democracy. Sworn enemies as they were, the then ideologically close parties of Fidesz and Jobbik received almost 70% of votes, which meant they shared 159 out of the total of 199 seats in the parliament. The results came as a clear reflection of the ideological climate in the Hungarian society that was veering ever further to the right, away from liberal democracy. It is not difficult to provide an explanation for this. On the one hand, the society reacted on the world trends of populism, conservatism and Euroscepticism fuelled by the migration crisis, while on the other hand, the ruling party of Fidesz turned these trends to good use by playing on the feelings of the Hungarians, in particular, regarding the national wound caused by the Treaty of Trianon, the nation’s unity and its fight to break free from the conspiracy spearheaded by George Soros, etc. The ideologically more right Jobbik  adopted the same approach, which explains its surge (at some point even more rapid than that of Fidesz) in ratings up till 2018. In the end, Orbán’s party had to resort to borrowing quite a few of Jobbik’s slogans in order to destroy it and win back voters. 

A popular with Hungarian journalists and political experts’ belief has it that in the past several years Fidesz has been implementing Jobbik’s program. Whereas the ratings of Orbán’s party remain unbelievably high, well over 50%, those of Jobbik have plummeted dramatically, standing now at a mere 8%, which means that the party has lost 2 thirds of its previous support. Some social experts do not rule out the possibility of the party finding itself out of the parliament at the 2022 elections. It is of importance to note that the present-day Jobbik is a far cry from the far-right party it once used to be. It can hardly be described as an ideologically right party. Today Jobbik consists of rather centrists and moderate conservatives. The party’s ideological manoeuvres have practically led to the division within its rank and file. However, it is difficult to pinpoint the exact cause of it – was it because of the ideological search or a “clumsy assistance” from Fidesz? 

Either way, the place of the main alternative to Viktor Orbán’s party may today be taken not by another illiberal right or center-right party, but by the exemplary liberal-democratic Momentum. This party has yet to win the fight for a “clear” second place as well as contest the status of the main opposition party in Hungary currently enjoyed by the Democratic Coalition (DK) with the scandalous ex-prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsány as its leader. Nevertheless, Momentum has already several achievements under its belt. 

The party, which is effectively a political movement, was founded as recently as in 2017 after quite a spontaneous but nevertheless successful campaign led by the Hungarian youth against Budapest hosting the Summer Olympics in 2024. As a result, Momentum managed to launch the campaign (by having the collective petition signed) that was joined by the majority of the then opposition parties. In the end, the Hungarian authorities withdrew the Budapest application. Since Viktor Orbán and his cabinet supported the ambition to host the Summer Olympics in 2024, Momentum’s victorious campaign turned into the prime minister’s personal defeat. 

That being said, it took another 2 years for Momentum to claim the second sizeable win. At the elections to the European Parliament in the summer of 2019 the party had the edge over Jobbik and with 10% of the votes took the third place right after Fidesz and the aforementioned Democratic Coalition headed by Gyurcsány. Already in the fall of the same year Momentum collaborated with other opposition parties, including Jobbik, to spoil Fidesz’s another electoral triumph. The ruling party lost several crucial seats in the parliament, including the one in the Budapest constituency with Gergely Karácsony emerging as winner. 

Interestingly, Momentum’s rapid political ascent was expected by many right after the successful “Olympics” campaign, but it took the party a bit longer to achieve further success. Furthermore, there was a feeling of disappointment at Momentum in the wake of the elections. The party’s conditionally belated success along with Jobbik’s degradation and other changes in Hungary’s political landscape provide the basis for observing a possible swing of the ideological pendulum from the total right conservatism and populism towards the centre or even a liberal democracy. 

This is not to say that Fidesz is going to lose its influence, ratings or power. However, Orbán and his team will have to take into account the fact that it is not the far-right Jobbik who is to be reckoned with, but the liberal-democratic Momentum. Perhaps Fidesz could borrow a thing or two from Momentum’s program or style as it had already done with Jobbik back in 2014. 

It could by all means be assumed that such an act would imply Fidesz and personally Viktor Orbán returning to their roots. Such scenario is hardly plausible, though. The Orbán of 1990, a scholar at the George Soros’ foundation, and the Orbán of 2010-2020 are two quite different politicians. Hopefully, these two figures will remain democrats.   

This is actually tantamount to believing that the illiberal democracy in Hungary does not necessarily constitute an ideological “end of history”, the term coined by Francis Fukuyama. It is even more so, since in Fukuyama’s opinion, “the end of history” is possible only after the triumph of the liberal democracy. 

Dmytro Tuzhanskyi, political observer, the Institute for Central European Strategy