'Yes' Wins

Let us begin by reminding ourselves that all political careers end in failure. This iron law is broken only when a political leader’s career is halted early in is course, while the figure is still popular or relatively so, especially when the halt is effected by assassination: the example of the Kennedy brothers in the 1960s is a prime example. That said, the opportunity afforded to a politician by the euphoria of an electoral victory is a great one; an opportunity to be seized and used to make a substantive difference, by delivering on promises and vigorously kick-starting initiatives in the first two hundred days of power, the springtime of a new government.

We remember the euphoria surrounding the election of Barack Obama in November 2008, of Tony Blair in 1997. We can look back and survey how the promise of those beginnings fared, and ‘sigh the lack of many a thing I sought’ as Sonnet 30 has it.

Just such a moment of euphoria has arrived in Hungary, and it is an important one for Europe and the world.

When Biden won in 2020 I wrote that he should immediately set in motion the constitutional reforms desperately needed in the US – at the minimum: change the system of representation for the House of Representatives, democratize the Senate, abolish the Electoral College, and remove the Supreme Court appointment process from politics – in doing so stating that he would not himself stand for a second term in order not to benefit from the changes, allowing a fresh start on a refurbished basis. If only that had happened! How many lives would have been saved, how much suffering of all kinds and how much disruption and disorder prevented worldwide!

Just such a moment has arrived in Hungary which, for all that it is a small country in size, population and economy, is a very important one in global affairs. The triumph of Peter Magyar’s Tisza Party (‘tisza’ means ‘yes’ in the country’s Uralic national language, Magyar – an appropriate coincidence in the circumstances) is a wonderfully hopeful assertion of liberal democratic values against the rise of authoritarianism for which, with the support and to the glee of Trump and Putin, Orbán has been a poster boy. The vote for Tisza was not only a vote against the corruption and dictatorialism of Orbán, but a vote against Trump and Putin, both of whom campaigned vigorously on Orbán’s behalf, covertly and overtly – the latter exemplified by Vance actually visiting Hungary in the week before the election to wave the Trumpian thurible of frankincense and myrrh (by now long a putrid stink) over Orbán’s regime. Reaffirming yet another fatality caused by Trumpianism and authoritarianism, viz. the death of irony, Vance accused the EU of interfering in Hungary’s election even as he stood on the hustings alongside Orbán urging Hungarians to vote for him.

Orbán has hampered EU efforts to help Ukraine against Russian aggression. He has been a stone in the shoe of the EU ever since he came to power sixteen years ago, to the delight of Putin and Trump, and indeed at their bidding and with their funding. Hungary’s economy has suffered because of the withholding of EU funds in response to his hollowing-out of Hungary’s democracy, suborning the judicial system, undermining press freedom, populating offices of state and economy with placemen, enriching family and friends, and manipulating the electoral system in hopes of favouring himself (eventually, as we see, futilely). His playbook and Trump’s are identical: the playbook of authoritarianism corrupting democracy from within.

The success of Hungary’s Tisza Party came down to the ballots marked by Hungarian voters on Sunday 12 April. The voters who have given Tisza an unequivocally large majority in the Diet had the experience of sixteen years of increasing despotism and misrule, a war of aggression launched by Putin on a neighbouring country, and the ever-increasingly unhinged Trump (‘I love Orbán!’ said the Ghastly One recently) as reasons for their choice. But I ask you: sixteen years? In some Utopia somewhere, an electorate of reflective, principled, historically-informed and civic-minded voters would never have voted for an Orbán or a Trump in the first place. When can we hope that this essential ingredient of democracy – reflective, principled, historically-informed and civic-minded voters (this is one of the two essentials: the other is a good constitutional structure) will become the norm, not merely a Swiss and Scandinavian speciality?

Well: one must wish Peter Magyar well, and sincerely so; he has a big repair job to do; he has the hopes of a battered, oppressed but now happy majority of people behind him; let him be reminded of that iron law – viz. that his career, too, is far more likely than not to end in (at very least perceived) failure, so he must carpe diem and do right by the people who have entrusted him with the guidance of their country. His victory gives heart to everyone everywhere opposed to the increasing endangerment posed to democracy by creeping authoritarianism. It is a signal of hope that in the US midterms elections in November, Trump - that whiffling Jabberwock with eyes aflame - will have a Congress elected that will impeach him and throw him out. That day, if and when it comes, will be a frabjous one, as today is for Hungary.