Hungarian Elections 1: Liberal Orban to illiberal Orban

The elections that were held last weekend (April 3, 2022) in Hungary were closely followed by the left and opposition public opinion in our country, due to the fact that six parties came together to overthrow Orban and the parallels established between Orban and RTE. Orban's crushing victory saw mixed reactions in the opposition and in the mainstream media.

Since we could not fit what we will write about the Hungarian election in a single article due to its similarities with Turkish politics, we decided to examine this election from several different dimensions.

In our first article, we will briefly discuss the Hungarian elections in the historical process. In our second article, we will try to make a more political analysis. In our last article, we will look at where the left and the working class in Hungary stand as a political subject in this conjuncture.

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In the elections held on the same day, the victory of two Bonapartes; Vucic and Orban, in the elections held in Serbia and Hungary, shows that it is not easy to get rid of the conservative regimes in Eastern Europe. There was no expectation that Vucic would lose in the elections in Serbia. There seems to be no opposition to Vucic. But the step taken by the opposition for unity in Hungary for a year fed hopes that it would end the 12-year Orban rule. That hope was shattered in the elections at the weekend. It is seen that this defeat of the opposition bloc, in which six dissimilars came together, similar to the one in Turkey, created a demoralization of the opposition in Turkey, and that the social media trolls were also mouthing gum.

The alliance formed by Fidesz (Hungarian Citizens' Union) and KDNP (Christian Democratic People's Party), led by Orban, achieved a "super majority" (2/3 of the parliament) by taking 134 of the 199 deputies in the parliament with 54 percent of the votes. The alliance of "Unification for Hungary" (EM: Egységben Magyarországért), formed by the union of six parties, remained at 34% and only got 56 seats. Our Country (Mi Hazank), which emerged from the extreme-rightist Jobbik received 6% of the vote.

Undoubtedly, the "Nation Alliance" in Turkey and the alliance established against the 12-year-old Orban regime in Hungary are similar in some respects. Both formations consist of six parties, and we are really talking about six parties that are unlikely to come together under normal conditions. The recent vote rates in the 2018 elections and political tendencies of these parties are as follows:

- Hungarian Socialist Party (social-democratic): 12 percent

- Democratic Coalition (social-democratic): 5.3 percent

- Jobbik (extreme nationalist) 19 percent

- Momentum Movement (liberal): 3 percent

- Hungarian Green Party: 7 percent

- Dialogue Party for Hungary (Green, liberal, centre-left): did not join – established by those who left the Green Party

The first signs of a merger of the opposition parties against Orban, who has ruled Hungary for twelve years, emerged in December 2020. This was motivated by the fact that Marki-Zay, who was determined as the joint candidate of the alliance in the 2022 elections, won the municipal elections in Hódmezővásárhely, known as the castle of Fidesz, with a population of 44 thousand, as an independent candidate in the 2018 elections.

At first, the name Marki-Zay was not something that the six parties had much in common with. The election success of Marki-Zay was not associated with the political charisma of him, but with the fall of a city that was Fidesz's stronghold. It was evaluated in terms of creating a belief that Fidesz could be defetaed. On the other hand, Marki-Zay, who has seven children and is known for his devotion to traditional values, is a former Fidesz member. He described himself as a right-wing Christian, who left his party (Fides) since Fdesz, who came to power with a program based on liberal values ​​have departed from these values.

As a matter of fact, Klara Dobrev, the candidate of the Democratic Coalition or the liberal-green politician Gergely Karacsony, who was elected the Mayor of Budapest as the joint candidate of the opposition in the 2019 local elections, were spelled more at the beginning of the alliance negotiations. This story bears a great resemblance to the election process of Mansur Yavaş in Ankara. However, with similar motives to the CHP's nomination of Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu in 2014, the alliance agreed with the name Marki-Zay, who is known for his conservatism and piety, assuming that the right-wing voters could be attracted.

2019 Türkiye yerel seçimleri ve Çekya’daki Ekim 2021’de beş partili “Demokratik Cephe” adayının başbakan Andrey Babis’i devirmesi de birleşik bir muhalefetin başarısı yönünde motive edici gelişmelerdi.

Bu senenin başlarında kamuoyu yoklamaları birleşik muhalefetle Fidesz-KDNP bloğu arasındaki oy farkının bir iki puana düştüğünü gösteriyordu ve umut yükseliyordu. Hatta o dönemde Türkiye’deki kamuoyu da Macaristan’ı bu konjonktürde takibe almıştı. Fakat 4 Nisan seçimlerinde büyük bir hezimetle sonuçlandı.

The 2019 local elections in Turkey and the five-party "Democratic Front" candidate's overthrow of prime minister Andrey Babis in October 2021 in Czechia were also motivating developments for the success of a united opposition in Hungary.

Earlier this year, opinion polls showed that the gap between the united opposition and the Fidesz-KDNP bloc had narrowed to a point or two, and hope was rising. Even the public opinion in Turkey at that time followed Hungary in this conjuncture. However, it resulted in a great defeat in the April 4 elections.

Before looking at the reasons for this defeat, it is necessary to take a look at Orban's political career.

Today, Orban, who has sworn to delete the Hungarian-American speculator Soros, is known to be associated with the "Open Society Foundation" founded and funded by Soros in his youth. He even started working part-time at the Open Society Foundation in 1987 and completed his studies on civil society at Oxford with a Soros fellowship. Adhering to liberal values, who became prominent in politics in a short time, this young man took part in the parliament as a deputy of Fidesz, which exceeded the 5 percent threshold for the first time in the 1994 elections. He became the prime minister in the 1998 elections, at the age of 45, as the leader of the party in the next election. The biggest share in this is the privatization and the austerity policies implemented under the guidance of the IMF between 1994-1998 by the MSZP (Hungarian Socialist Party), which was called "socialist" but has nothing to do with social democracy.

Orban had hinted to the government that it would be “liberal” and would follow a policy compatible with the West. In this context, the similarities with the conjuncture in which the AKP came to power in 2001 are striking.

Hungary joined NATO in 1999, the first year of Orban's rule. But despite the support of the West, narrowly lost both the 2002 and 2006 elections.

In the meantime Orban realized that a nationalist and chauvinist rhetoric at home, without scaring the West, opened up greater opportunities in politics, and he came to power in 2010, never to go again. Orban, who could not afford to oppose the West and especially the EU values ​​in the first four years, came to power unopposed in the 2014 elections, saying: “My target is an illiberal society!”

In the process, Orban's Hungary, which clashed with Western liberalism in every field with its violation of the separation of powers, especially in refugee politics, became a troublemaker for the EU along with Poland, which was no different from Hungary in this regard. But the EU had nothing to do. Orban continued to receive the support of the voters with his successful consolidation moves. On the other hand, by developing cooperation with conservative regimes such as Poland, Turkey and Serbia, and even by pursuing a more balanced foreign policy with Russia, Orban successfully maintains Hungary's "national interests" in foreign policy in the eyes of the electorates.

However, in the 12-year period in Hungary, the loss of the independence of the judiciary, the restriction of democratic rights, and many similar areas, the Hungarian people were taken under control. In this stance, before the 2022 elections, almost all the parties united and formed an electoral alliance against Orban, and hopes that this period would end had begun to sprout. But on April 4, 2022, something unexpected happened and Orban had the biggest electoral success of his political career. In the 2018 elections, the parties that received 45 percent of the total votes received 34 percent of the votes, even though they were united.

In our next article, we'll take a closer look at how Orban won, or why the opposition lost.