Populism Gains Ground in Hungarian Politics: A Decade of Viktor Orban - Essay Sample

Introduction

In the past decade, beginning from 2006, Populism has seen to gain ground in Hungarian politics. The Hungarian leadership under Prime minister Viktor Orban is the true definition of an excellent populism. Financial insecurity, institution distrust, ineffectiveness of government and low performances of the economy have become perfect grounds for populist parties to campaign against (Antal, 2017, p.563). In a scenario of reduced institutional trust, voters view traditional leaders as powerless individuals in front of the various socioeconomic issues. Because institutional trust is required to build the relationship between an individual and an institution, the institutions scope to be trusted shifts from one person to the other. In this regard, the main institutions to be given consideration are the police, the overall legal system, education system, healthcare, and the policy-making groups. Historically, Populist regimes have attempted to deal with certain problems such as income inequality challenges by using policies of expansive macroeconomics. This paper aims at discussing the successes of Populism in Hungary while engaging some theories of Populism while evaluating their strengths and limitation.

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Trusting institutions are usually expressed by value judgment. The relationship's nature can be termed as supportive, opposing, or neutral. However, it is very difficult to quantify the institutional trust; this is because it both differs from person to person and also influenced by an individual's mood, time, and personal experiences. The institutional trust garners more significance in the light of the process of European integration, which often places one country's interest against the entire European Union (Bozoki, 2012, p.79). This situation becomes even more tricky if the Euro system for which nations gave up their monetary sovereignty is considered, which has resulted in prominences among the populist parties while undermining democracies. Similarly, at the regional level, the populist parties have constantly opposed the European institution's policies. Thus, Eurosceptic discourse is becoming a vital component that campaigns for the rise of populist parties. In Hungary, Populism takes place as a government force.

Brief Background of the Rise of Populism in Hungary

According to Adam and Bozoki (2011, p.67), during the late 20th century, democracy prevailed over oppressive dictatorships within Eastern Europe. Populism rose after the failure of liberal democracy, which promised the citizens empty promises. Hungary society has undergone eight revolutions and changes in regimes. Each has been involved in an obligatory ideology change, indicating that the government in power attempted to reshape the Nation in accordance with its own ideals. This was not to be successful because of the system changes indicating the social and political conflicts couldn't be resolved. The Hungarian History of the 20th-century traumas hit the Nation very hard. The 1988-1990 radical change brought out a lot of changes in Hungarian society, from a community system into a capitalism and market economy. Further, there was a transition to democracy whereby the liberals developed their political movement during 1991 that aimed at restoring the right-wing populist politics (Adam and Bozoki, 2011, p.90).

Success and Triumph of Populism - The Migration Crisis

Popularism gained recognition in Hungary after 2004 and pushed through the economic and moral crisis. Since 2015, Populism has been effective as it has driven different political actions. Ferenc Gyurcsany did introduce different novelties in political language during 2000 (Csigo and Merkovity, 2016, p.123). In 2010, Fidesz party followed a populist strategy which was manifested by emphasizing on the significance of popular referendums alongside communication that blamed international elites for the economic crisis. On the other hand, the right-wing propaganda machine complained on the dominance of liberal norms that endangers democracy. In 2010, Fidesz won in the national assembly when Ferenc lost his significance. The left-wing opposition was entirely destroyed in 2014 after the repeated majority of two thirds. However, within the same year, the rhetoric of the government was also performing poorly and hence a right-wing innovation within the political horizon (Csigo and Merkovity, 2016, p.127). Jobbik's election defeat in 2014 made Vona, the then party chairman to term radicals as drawbacks to the party's further expansion. This pushed Vona to launch a new direction of communication within 2014. In a month's time, Fidesz popularity rose up after the change of regime.

Populism has proved so radical in Hungary because of various reasons. The negative reason relates to the fact that post-communist left after 1989 and entered a reproduction crisis with changes associated with the 21st century. This crisis was highly exacerbated by the 2006 political scandals after the reelection of Ferenc Gyurcsany, the Prime Minister, who leaked a speech that admitted lying to people. This was later followed by street riots and polarization of politics. Even before the hit of the economic crisis in Hungary, the Nation had a long-term leader that was considered to lack enough ruling legitimacy. At this point, the post communist's history was very much intertwined with the history of right-wing radicals but the former declined because of the rise of the latter.

The growing dominance and human right's radicalization have notably been a continuous process. The west European right went through a deradicalization process after fascism defeat. During elections, the liberals polled less than 20% while Fidesz got more than two thirds of the parliamentary seats (Antal, 2019, p.70). This was because the party's voters were very dedicated to enhance the success of the party through votes. The idea of Populism being essential for opposition strategy that cannot be utilized after parties gained power has constantly been asserted however the Hungary's case reveals the fact that the assumptions can be unfounded. From 2010, Fidesz party has been able to rule in populist fashion and hence managed to conquer different institutions by making weaker checks and balances (Antal, 2019, p.786). The party has also been able to develop a political-economic system where the party and state of Hungary are intertwined closely.

Populism as Politics of Under Institutionalization

Populism is considered as an anti-elitist political ideology contrasting pure people's interests. When electronically successful, different populist parties garner power to form governments just like the case of Hungary. Due to their representation of anti-elitist and anti-institutional, their administrations are bound to be challenged by various issues hence under-delivering promises. However, despite all these claims, Hungary is a good demonstration of a successful populism since 2010, and their performances of administration might be sufficient to getting reelection. Fidesz was able to combine both the nationalism of anti-elitist and the stance of anti-EU with an approach of pragmatist in different areas of policy that represent charismatic leaderships and defend the national interest of people (Danaj, Lazanyi and Bilan, 2018, p.34).

Populism doesn't have any permanent ideology but has an anti-elitist approach which aims to sought mass participation in politics. Hungary has proven that Populism is democratic despite failing to adhere to the liberal democracy norms. The Hungary populist party has proved to manipulate the public discourse through the use of mass media while engaging in mass mobilization. Such ideological contents entail issues such as antigay, anti-Muslim, anti-liberal and xenophobia. After attaining the requirements, Populism serves different purposes of ideology, be it nationalist or socialist (Bartlett et al., 2012, p.66). Populism extends these ideas to unify the Nation and prevent any sort of discrimination. For instance, in Hungary, the EU has been able to subsidize some of its poorer states to aid in the alleviation of the regional inequalities.

Strength of Populism

Populism also has some numerous strengths within Hungary. Viktor Orban is a very successful populist leaders because of his effective consolidation and power enrichment. Fidesz was able to mobilize various supporters during times of crisis and orchestrated very many campaigns regarding propaganda that targets the very diverse opponents. Furthermore, Hungary political life has been short of significant debates that have grown apathetic. Fidesz's Populism has been able to mobilize and depoliticize in similar measures; this was very significant as it greatly helped by the exit of numerous and well-educated individuals. The European space's openness has highly contributed to the power consolidation of the Orban regime (Szabo, Norocel, and Bene, 2019, p.156). Moreover, due to Populism, the Hungarian people have been well represented by leaders who are central to political discourses. This has resulted to a softer form of authoritarianism within Hungary nation.

Limitation of Populism

Judicial Independence

Fidesz has undermined democracy in Hungary through interfering with judicial independence. Despite many attempts that are set to undermine the judicial independence, some of the regulations by European union and UN rulings have curbed the damage policies extent and this on the hand has influenced the judicial system. The National Judicial Office, in the year 2013, was created as a new law administrator in Hungary, and the courts were also regulated. Therefore, this became a justification for termination of the supreme court president mandate. On 2016, June, the Human rights court in Europe was able to rule that the early termination violated people's right to access to the court or tribunal, simply because it could not be challenged. The rights used in the distribution of both caseloads and cases to various courts was written again. the law however, did not give any specification on the cases transfer for reasons that were motivated by politics. In addition to this, the constitution of Hungary did permit the new president of the judicial office ability to cancel any kind of application procedure for a given judge and also call a new one.

Political Rights of Disadvantaged Groups

There is a large number of different groups that have been disenfranchised politically by some of the policies that have been put forth by Fidesz. A renewed wave of anti-Semitism which took place most recently, has seen to contain a lot of multifold effect, and it is not only centered on the Jewish community but also other communities as well. This has been exemplified in 'While Propagating anti-semantic stereotypes. Also, Orban has managed to accuse both Soros and EU of their interest to make Europe a Muslim continent, therefore, discriminating the Muslims politically. Orban also described the asylum seekers arrival as a terror risk stating that migration is a problem. In defiance to EU, Hungary refused to take any singe asylum seeker that they were allotted in the quota solution of the EU (Furedi, 2017, p.56).

Perhaps the group which has seen most of the changes in the policy of discrimination in Roma are the ethnic minority which spread across the globe and were mostly concentrated in Europe, and for hundred years they have faced intolerance. Despite the Roma being the largest in number of the people in minority in Hungary, discrimination against them is always prevailing. After the post-occupation kind of transition, a general acceptance on the Roma community was seen, and this was politically evidenced by their government representation.

Press Freedom

According t...