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<div><font
color="#000000"
>https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/10/orban-election<span
></span>-hungary-europe-future-past</font></div>
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<div><font color="#000000"><b>Orbán's Hungary is not the future of
Europe: it represents a dying past</b></font><br>
</div>
<div><font color="#000000">Cas Mudde</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><i>The declining birthrate and brain drain
are likely to continue, as a fearful Hungary turns in on itself ever
further</i></font></div>
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<div><font color="#000000">On Sunday Hungarians went to the polls to
elect a new parliament. At stake was the fate of the prime minister,
Viktor Orbán, whom international media love to describe in dramatic,
but ultimately euphemistic, terms such as "Europe's bad boy" or
"Europe's flame thrower". Based on the near-final results, Orbán's
Fidesz-KDNP "coalition" won a staggering 48.9% of the vote, up by
4%, and a new constitutional majority of 134 seats.<br>
<br>
They were followed, at a considerable distance, by the Movement for a
Better Hungary (Jobbik), the notorious far-right party that had
campaigned on a relatively moderate anti-Fidesz-corruption platform,
with 19.3% and 25 seats - a loss of almost 1%, but a gain of two
seats. The centrist coalition vote was split over three parties this
time.<br>
<br>
The Hungarian Socialist party-Dialogue for Hungary (MSZP) coalition
got 12.25% and 20 seats, whereas the Democratic Coalition (DK) got
5.54% and nine seats. In 2014, the two had contested together under
the misnomer "Unity" and had achieved almost 8% and nine seats
more. The nominally Green "Politics Can Be Different" (LMP),
finally, got 6.9% of the vote and eight seats, a gain of 1.6% and
three seats.<br>
<br>
Orbán has been in power for eight straight years, during which he
first transformed Hungary from a troubled liberal democracy into an
illiberal kleptocracy, before taking on the European status quo, and
in particular German chancellor Angela Merkel, on a broad variety of
issues, but most notably immigration policies.<br>
<br>
He regained power in 2010 with a relatively moderate conservative
agenda centered on a vague program of change. He used his two-thirds
majority to change the constitution, appoint cronies to each and every
new and old political institution, and lay the groundwork for a
long-term reign. His electoral engineering paid off in 2014, when his
Fidesz-KDNP "coalition" maintained its constitutional majority on
the basis of the votes of "Hungarians abroad" - Hungarian speakers
in bordering countries, whom Orbán had offered Hungarian
citizenship, for which they rewarded him by voting almost unanimously
for Fidesz-KDNP.<br>
<br>
Since then Orbán has further consolidated his "illiberal state"
at home, while becoming the most influential voice of the radical
right in Europe abroad. Putting traditional radical right leaders like
Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders in his shadow - both openly support
him and Orbán has met several radical right leaders, including
Wilders, who has a Hungarian wife - Orbán has adopted all the
far-right conspiracy theories and has build his campaign and regime on
them.<br>
<br>
Over the past years the Orbán government has paid tens of millions
of dollars for nativist campaigns against immigrants, including a
failed referendum, as well as the European Union. Barring a few
remaining outlets, the Hungarian media has been made into a propaganda
machine of the regime, bombarding the citizens with terrifying stories
about (Muslim) immigrants, while staying silent on the massive
corruption scandals surrounding the Orbán kleptocracy.<br>
<br>
Polls had consistently shown that this was successful and they turned
out to have been largely accurate. Many in the opposition had believed
that if turnout was high, Fidesz would be vulnerable, and some
delusional opposition leaders even openly spoke of forming a
government. But while turnout was indeed high across the country, the
highest in this century, it was up both in the pro-government
countryside and in the pro-opposition capital. The net effect seems to
have been marginal or possibly even strengthening Fidesz.<br>
<br>
Hungary has an electoral system with the highest disproportionality in
terms of translating votes into seats of all the EU member states - a
well-engineered outcome from the previous election reform, but there
is no denying that Orbán is by far the most popular politician in
the country. Similarly, while the OSCE published a "damning verdict"
on the elections, which might have been "free" but were certainly
not "fair", the opposition was mainly defeated by its own
incompetence. The price that they, and their supporters, will continue
to pay for this could become even higher.</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br>
In his last campaign speech, Orbán explained to his supporters what
was at stake: "For us Hungary comes first; for them George Soros and
the power he offers comes first. Because for power and money they are
capable of anything." In a previous Facebook post, he had already
warned that "we must stop any organization that promotes illegal
migration for ideological or other reasons that have no democratic
mandate".<br>
<br>
On election night, the secretary of state for public diplomacy and
relations, Zoltán Kovács, made clear that this was not just
election talk. Quite ominously, he told the website Index.hu that
"the loopholes still present in the legal system which allow
unauthorized organizations to rummage around, so to speak, in the
doings of political life, in political decision-making, need to be
closed."<br>
<br>
Despite the Orbán government's obsessive nativist rhetoric about
saving the Hungarian nation, Hungary has the second-worst negative
population growth in the EU. The country has a net loss of one person
every 16 minutes. While this sharp decline of the Hungarian population
predates Orbán's rule, his government policies to boost the native
population by financially rewarding (large) families have not made a
dent in the national decline.<br>
<br>
In fact, the situation is worse today than it was when he took over in
2010. And the net figures hide an even bigger tragedy, the
extraordinary brain drain of highly educated, younger people, who move
to the west. His re-election will undoubtedly lead to a new exodus and
will strengthen the opinion of many previous expats that there is
nothing to return to. This is Hungary's lost generation, which will
haunt the country even after Fidesz is finally ousted.<br>
<br>
In short, Orbán's Hungary is not the future of Europe, it is its
declining, nationalist past. It is a country with an ageing and ever
decreasing population, turned in on itself, scared of everything
outside, and increasingly inside, its borders. Ironically, it mainly
survives because of the very future it rejects, ie subsidies by the
much-maligned European Union.</font><br>
</div>
<div><font color="#000000"><i>Cas Mudde is a Guardian US columnist, an
associate professor in the School of Public and International Affairs
at the University of Georgia, and a researcher in the Center for
Research on Extremism at the University of Oslo</i></font></div>
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