From “Defending Democracy from its Christian Enemies” by David P. Gushee
Today, Orban’s Fidesz party together with the Christian Democratic People’s Party controls a supermajority in parliament and dominates every branch, and pretty much every function, of Hungarian government. It is hard to know where to begin in documenting the autocratic moves that Orban’s government has undertaken.
We will start with elections. As in Poland, Freedom House judges Hungary’s elections as free but not fair. Besides ruthless gerrymandering, the government dominates public media and directs public funds to support party candidates. In the recent April 3, 2022 election, Orban won with 53 percent of the vote, despite a concerted effort by the opposition to unite in order to drive him from office before he settles in for life.
The Economist suggests that Orban was able to win again in part by leveraging the Russian invasion of Ukraine through the relentless use and abuse of state media, which “relayed his baseless claim that the opposition would drag Hungary into war with Russia.” But the election was by no means fair. The Washington Post summarized the three primary reasons for Orban’s win as “rigged rules, a horrible war, and autocratic cheating.” The rigged system is apparent in the fact what winning a mere 53 percent of the vote got him 83 percent of the districts and thus total domination in parliament. Also notice this little electoral innovation:
A November law introduced “voter tourism,” allowing any Hungarian citizen to legally register to vote in any district. Before the election, evidence surfaced that voters were being strategically moved into districts that might otherwise be close, with hundreds of voters registered at single residences. On ELection Day, monitors documented minibuses delivering clusters of voters to polls.