The Disappearing Left

Viktor Orbán’s historic defeat by Peter Magyar in the recent Hungarian elections was rightly celebrated in progressive circles and beyond. For the global far right, which has been steadily gaining power and influence for more than a decade, it was a significant blow. But it was not a victory for the left. A former member of Orbán’s Fidesz party, Magyar will lead a conservative center-right government in a parliament where the only opposition will come from Fidesz and a small party with neo-Nazi roots.

In the rest of Central Europe, the story is largely the same. Bulgaria last week elected a nationalist, pro-Moscow prime minister, Rumen Radev, who will take a hardline stance on migration and is a fierce critic of the European Union's Green Deal. The country's Socialist Party, present in parliament since 1989, won no seats.

In the Czech Republic, the Social Democratic Party – a former political force – has been completely wiped out in two consecutive election cycles, and current Prime Minister Andrej Babiš is leading the country on a Donald Trump-style path, under the slogan “Czech Republic First”. In Slovenia, another Trump fan is on the verge of becoming the next prime minister. The right-wing populist views of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico have led to his party being expelled from the EU’s umbrella organisation of social democratic parties. And in Poland, where the far-right Law and Justice party was finally ousted from power in 2023, the progressive left has won less than 10 percent of the vote in the polls.

Central Europe needs a new left that can simultaneously defend democratic values ​​and show the way to a more egalitarian future.

What happened? The smell of politically scorched earth contrasts sharply with the picture of the 1990s. As the market transformation of post-communist societies progressed at sometimes breakneck speed after 1989, widespread inequality and insecurity provoked a strong voter backlash. Former communist parties on the left came to power promising to ease the burden of transition for vulnerable groups. But as they largely adhered to the dominant liberal economic orthodoxy, that promise was only partially fulfilled, with accompanying evidence of corruption and clientelism. After the 2008 crash and the 2015 migrant crisis, working-class, rural, and older voters shifted en masse to the populist right.

Part of this, of course, is a chronology that has unfolded across the EU and the West. Center-left parties have come under fire for their association with austerity policies and a failed political establishment. But the countries of Central Europe are distinguished by the legacy of living in the orbit of the former Soviet Union, the enduring influence of conservative Christian views, and disillusionment with the long-standing inequality between East and West within the EU. In the absence of a convincing offer from the other side of the political spectrum, right-wing nationalists continue to rely on these social currents to seize power.

Dishearteningly, the current impotence of progressive politics means that the EU’s eastern flank is likely to remain fertile ground for Orbán-style populism. In Poland, and now in Hungary, liberal voters have judged that center-right parties are the best instrument for reclaiming democracies that authoritarian governments have captured and corrupted. Endorsing that strategy provides better protection for minority rights and better relations with Brussels. But simmering social and economic divisions are likely to persist. Central Europe needs a new left that can both defend democratic values ​​and point the way to a more egalitarian future.

Translation: A. Š.