Hungary's voters gave an overwhelming fourth mandate to incumbent Prime Minister Viktor Orban on 3 April. But critics and observers say that state control of the media, misinformation and a lack of democratic tradition played crucial roles in the victory for Orban's extreme-right Fidesz party. As France gears up for its own elections, what can it learn from observing its fellow European member?
On the iconic Hősök Tere (Heroes Square) in Budapest stands a temporary, cube-like structure of black cloth, reminiscent of the Kaaba in Mecca, overlooked by the pillar of the Millennium Monument with its statues of the seven Chieftains of the Maygar tribes – Hungary's founding fathers – on horseback.
A meters-wide television screen on one of the sides of the structure shows a gesticulating politician in black and white, their face not visible. Loudspeakers blare harsh rhetoric: it’s the voice of Hungary’s strongman Orban uttering sentences, played in first in regular speech – then in reverse, adding to the surrealist feel.
"It’s a video protest, against tyranny," explains Adamkó Dávid, the artist who created the project.
Inside the tent, a smaller screen shows pictures from a century of Hungarian history which is dominated by autocrats and a population which at times revolts, but in the end seems to give up resistance. "And there we are today, here we are again," says a commenter's voice.
Adamkó set up his “Ōnkény - Tyranny” project just a week before the elections on 3 April. "The main question behind this is why Hungarian society always moves towards autocracy. Over the last 150 years, autocratic regimes have ruled Hungary. Only just for a few moments did we turn to democracy."
'Post-modern autocracy'
The fact the government allows artistic, political protest in the centre of Budapest only means the dictatorship grew more subtly, says Adamkó. "It is a post-modern autocracy. It is not repressive; they don't put people like journalists in jail. It's Europe, they can't do that."
Russian economist and author Sergei Guriev, who lives in exile in Paris after running into trouble with authorities in Moscow, has coined a term for Orban-style post-modern autocrats: 'spin dictators'.
In the book Spin Dictators – the Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century, which he co-wrote with political scientist Daniel Treisman, Guriev argues that modern dictators differ from their 20th century predecessors.
"In the 20th century there was a traditional model based on ideology, repression and fear," he says. Notorious dictators such Hitler and Stalin "would terrorise the population into submission". But today’s autocrats are 'spin' dictators who try to remain popular "through the manipulation of information and cooptation by the elite", resulting in far less repression.
It is not that the opposition is not allowed to try. Over the past eight years, opposition parties in Hungary struggled hard to find a way to fight the Orban machine and break the stranglehold of the Fidesz party on society – an impossible task, as proven again by the results of last week elections, when Fidesz won an outright two-thirds parliamentary majority.
"We have been fighting together for democracy for a long time," Budapest vice-mayor Tüttő Kata, a leader of the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP), told RFI. "We tried different ways to defeat Mr Orban four years ago, but it didn’t work."
MSZP is one of six political groupings of diverse colours that formed the opposition United for Hungary coalition, which then launched economist Péter Márki-Zay as their candidate to defeat Fidesz.
But another four years of compromises and coalition building didn’t help. "We have to form a community of the opposition parties and of the voters."
There were some small successes, including winning the Budapest City Council and inroads in other big cities. But the big prize, the premiership of Hungary, keeps on eluding the opposition.
Monster win
"All the polling institutions predicted that Fidesz would win," muses Mráz Ágoston, founder of the government owned Nézőpont Intézet, heralded by Orban as "the first Hungarian think-tank modelled after its Western peers."
"And clearly it was a huge victory. But nobody predicted that it would be a two-thirds majority, which is necessary to change the constitution."
According to Mráz, it was Orban himself who pulled Fidesz towards the monster win. "The popularity of Viktor Orban was always higher than the support for Fidesz." And that resulted result that was 3.5 percent higher than any poll predicted, he says.
But unlike countries such as France, where media covering the elections is obliged to give equal airtime to political candidates, opposition figures in Hungary are rarely shown on the mostly state-controlled press.
"Hungarian state television is financed from a yearly budget that is double the budget of the two largest private channels combined," Gulyas Janosz, head of a communications company in Budapest, told RFI.
"State television has managed to invite 18 opposition politicians over the past four years. In that context the opportunity for the opposition to convey its messages is very limited."
"Viktor Orban’s idea of politics is that he needs to control a certain part of the media," says Szabolcs Panyi, a research journalist with the crowd-funded independent online publication Direkt36.
"This is because he faced election losses in the 1990s and the 2000s, and from that he learned that what matters most is a favorable coverage in the media."
Tight controls
According to Tüttő, the vice-mayor, "500 media outlets are controlled by Fidesz. The public media don’t serve the public interest," she says, "they absolutely serve Fidesz’ interest."
Szabolcs adds that it’s been Orban’s "mission, for years, to establish a pro-government media empire".
One way to achieve that was for Orban to urge state-owned banks to "give loans to businessmen connected to the government, who then used that money to buy up media outlets," and control editorial content.
Mráz, of the Orban-friendly Nézőpont institute, plays down the allegations. "Our data show that 6.8 million citizens can be reached by the liberal media, and the same amount by the conservative press."
According to Mráz, "being pro-government is a tradition for Hungarian public media", adding this was already the case before Orban took office. "But that doesn’t mean that the liberal, leftist and opposition media cannot send their messages to the citizens," he says.
But in practice, Orban is the master of the airwaves.
He capitalised on his omnipresence in the press after the Russian invasion into Ukraine briefly threatened his popularity. The opposition tried to capitalise the occasion, telling voters they had the choice between "a Hungarian Putin" or "Europe".
But just days after the start of Moscow's military adventure, Orban played down his support for Putin, and started presenting himself as the "candidate for peace". He counter-attacked, saying that a vote for the opposition would mean "dragging Hungary into the conflict". The Orban-controlled press carried the message into the far corners of the country.
It worked. "I was helping refugees from Ukraine in the countryside," relates Orosz Mónika, who also worked as an election monitor for the opposition.
"Many old people said [the war] ‘was caused by the other party'. Orban doesn’t want to go to war, it is because of the other party."
What do Fidesz’ voters say themselves?
"It's the war," explained Alexandra, a 77-year-old Fidesz voter interviewed by RFI on election day, echoing Orban’s words that Hungary should stay out of the conflict.
"We are a small country. We can’t change anything. It is up to the superpowers. I’m old enough to see that."
Adriana, a woman in her twenties, says: "It's always hard to experience change. I feel like the current status is better than the unknown. So that's why I just stayed at a safe place."
On 4 April, the day after the elections, the verdict of some election observers was harsh. A total of 906 international observers were officially registered with Hungary's Election Commission, including representatives of the US British and Japanese embassies, NGO's like the right-leaning Judicial Watch, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and others.
"Issues in the pre-election day period, including shortcomings and gaps in the legal framework, tilted the playing field in favor of the ruling coalition," according to the report of the European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations (ENEMO).
Deep polarisation
"The legal framework necessitates an overhaul, as to address observed issues and improve conditions for holding democratic elections” said Dritan Taulla, head of the ENEMO mission, who also told RFI that he worried about the monopoly of the state-owned press which heavily favored Orban's party.
"The campaign was mostly characterized by lack of constructive discussions, failing to provide the public with meaningful information, as well as deep polarisation," added political and campaign analyst Dmytro Tuzhanskyi, quoted by ENEMO's website.
The site also complained that women were "generally underrepresented in politics and the legislative body of Hungary" and that "domestic civil society organisations are not allowed to observe elections".
Yet the overwhelming victory for Orban means that his ruling Fidesz party will dominate Hungarian politics for four more years.
"It is a very strong mandate for Mr Orban," says Mráz of the pro-Orban Nézőpont thinktank. "Nobody can question this mandate, it was a democratic, free and fair election with a very clear result.
"And with it, I think we'll be very influential in the 'new right' of Europe, together with the [right wing-parties of] Poland, Spain, Portugal and Italy."
But many remain unhappy with the result.
"It was quite depressing and shocking," says Adamkó Dávid, the video artist. "I was a bit too optimistic. I am surprised. I think it is sad. It is really sad about what's going on here."
"Now, they will continue what they were doing. We will be more separated from Europe, we will go more to the system of Vladimir Putin. It's similar. It's parallel."
