The Last Chance to Stop Autocracy in Hungary

Belarus is often tagged Europe’s last dictatorship. This is only because the case of Hungary is often ignored. Viktor Orbán has overseen a steep democratic decline in Hungary but there may be one more chance to stop autocracy in the country. This article by Yasmeen Serhan is published by The Atlantic. Here is an excerpt:

After 12 years, Orbán claims near-complete control over Hungary’s public funds, its institutions, and its media ecosystem. Hungarian elections are “free in the sense that no one stuffs the ballot box,” Péter Krekó, the director of the Budapest-based Political Capital Institute, told me. “I think we are heading towards a point of no return where it will be practically impossible to replace the government through elections.”

Karácsony, the main challenger to Orbán’s dominance, is undeterred. Speaking from his office in the Hungarian capital, he told me the country’s best—perhaps its only—chance at defeating Orbán lies in opposition parties banding together, as they have since the beginning of the year. While the individual parties in this united coalition each claim only a fraction of the total vote, together they are projected to be neck and neck with Fidesz when the country heads to the polls next spring. For the first time in more than a decade, no one knows what the outcome of the Hungarian elections will be. “It might be the last chance,” Karácsony said. “If we lose now, that would have major consequences.”

Winning the election is only half the battle, though. Even if the united opposition manages to form a government, it faces the arduous task of reversing Hungary’s democratic decline—a process that has seen its institutions undermined, its media curtailed, and its resources exploited by Orbán and his allies. Taking power will be hard, but the de-Orbánization of Hungary will almost certainly be harder.

Continue reading here.