Notebook: Orbán breaks the camel's back
Hungary's choice; Dutch and Portuguese anger management
He finally did it.
Secure in Hungary’s membership of two clubs – the EU and NATO – from which no one can be expelled, Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz-KDNP super-majority government installed the “illiberal state” at home and championed racist nativism and alignment with Russia and China abroad.
For 14 years, Hungary’s obstructionism, provocation, and political interference in foreign elections have been enabled, pacified, and bought off by its nominal allies in these clubs. Time and again, it felt easier than either working around or taking on Orbán and a political/business class who had become expert at testing the limits of Hungary’s reverse protection racket. Of course, it worked both ways; “oh, y’know, Orbán” became a handy excuse for European inaction.
Orbán and his trolls had got so used to their consequence-free behaviour that they misjudged the sudden change in Europe’s geopolitical environment. Developed-world democracies have woken up with a jolt to the threat posed by authoritarianism in Moscow, Beijing, and maybe soon in Washington and, as a result, Orbánism has stopped being funny.
In an extraordinary speech to mark the 25th anniversary of Hungary’s NATO accession, David Pressman, the US ambassador to Budapest, ran through a long list of grievances with the Hungarian government and ended with a threat. “Russia’s war in Ukraine made it clear we can no longer ignore longstanding disagreements that are undermining our relationship and our shared security. The war has not divided us, but it has revealed points of tension that have for too long been left unaddressed … Hungary’s allies are warning Hungary of the dangers of its close and expanding relationship with Russia. If this is Hungary’s policy choice – and it has become increasingly clear that it is with the foreign minister’s sixth trip to Russia since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and with his next trip to Russia scheduled in two weeks, following his engagement with Russia’s foreign minister earlier this month, and the prime minister’s meeting with Vladimir Putin in China – we will have to decide how best to protect our security interests, which, as allies, should be our collective security interests”.
As I wrote in the first of these scribbles in December, the problem here isn’t Orbán; it’s his voters. A Policy Solutions poll conducted this time last year found that only 26% of Hungarians wanted to sacrifice their country’s relationship with the EU to be closer to Russia, 55% felt aligned in values with “the West” (including 46% of Fidesz-KDNP voters), and 76% (72% of Orbán voters) supported continued NATO membership. Hungarians have enjoyed having things both ways – enjoying the protection and fiscal transfers of their two clubs while also giving them the finger. Only yesterday, to mark the anniversary of the failed Hungarian revolution of 1848, Orbán told supporters: "If we want to defend Hungary's freedom and sovereignty, we have no other choice but to occupy Brussels”.
Thirty-seven per cent of Hungarians voted against Orbánism in 2022. They’re excused. The rest have to be made to choose or, as Pressman said, “we will have to decide how best to protect our security interests”.
Blame games
This week, two of my many reckless New Year’s Eve predictions were laid to rest after just three months. There will be no May election in the UK and Geert Wilders won’t be the next Dutch prime minister. In my weaselly defence, the next Dutch government will still be led by Wilders’ one-member party (PVV); just not by him.
In the wake of last weekend’s Portuguese election, it’s been fascinating to watch parallel gamesmanship in government formations in Lisbon and The Hague.
Since an election 115 days ago that gave the PVV a record 24% of the vote, Wilders has been in negotiations with three other parties – the established centre-right VVD, Pieter Omtzigt’s new Christian Democrat breakaway NSC, and farming lobbyists BBB – to form an administration. Taken with the idea of office, Wilders abandoned long-held views overnight, promised to govern from the “centre-right”, and Omtzigt – the other big election winner – had no choice but to talk. And how he hated it. The rebel backbencher and advocate of government-by-parliament, Omtzigt wanted neither executive responsibility nor the Wilders taint. As for Wilders, much as he modelled his new moderation on Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, he couldn't approach her self-discipline.
Inevitably, the talks broke down but Omtzigt and VVD leader Dilan Yeşilgöz were in a bind. Neither would go into government with the PVV without the other as cover and, since election day, PVV support had only risen. A Maurice de Hond poll published on 10 March found that 60% of voters would consider the PVV’s absence from the cabinet “unacceptable” and, if an election were called instead, the VVD would lose ground to Wilders while the NSC would shed a third of its seats.
To square the circle, a government-appointed mediator suggested this week that the four parties create a “programme cabinet” involving none of their leaders. They would agree to a thin coalition contract, appoint ministers from inside and outside their payroll, and outsource non-core initiatives to the lower house. This way, the NSC – which will be crushed at the next election anyway – and the VVD keep the PVV at arm’s length, while Wilders has scope to find ministerial experts outside his tiny and flaky cadre. Making him personally responsible for policy-making would have been better but, as a way of managing voters’ made-in-anger choices, this might work.
By contrast, in Portugal, the centre-right Aliança Democrática (AD) who won 34% of parliament’s seats last weekend, is going for the good-old cordon sanitaire approach. Chega – an anti-corruption, anti-immigration movement with a reputation for gypsy-baiting – led by charismatic populist André Ventura more than doubled its 2022 vote to clear 1.1 million. Like Trumpism, Brexitism, and lepénisme, Ventura tapped deep into the working-class, left-wing vote. Appealing to anger over housing shortages, poor infrastructure, and crime, Chega won big in old communist strongholds in the Setúbal region and the Algarve.
Like Wilders, Ventura felt he had the right at least to be involved in the formation of a new government of the right. But that’s a no from the AD while the socialist PS has no intention of offering an alternative grand coalition. Leaving opposition to Chega alone would be dangerous, say the PS. And they have a point.
Pick of the pods
If you don’t follow In Our Time already, you must. A podcast before podcasting was invented, Melvyn Bragg’s paid hobby cleared 1,000 episodes last autumn. As a rule, I think History (go back and listen to the fistfight over the Industrial Revolution) and Literature work best, Science second best, and Maths almost never. I enjoyed the recent Hanseatic League episode.
Nick Cohen’s The Lowdown interview with Tom Baldwin about his new biography of Keir Starmer was an eye-opener. The France TV C Ce Soir (podcast or YouTube) between “realist” Pierre Lellouche and pretty much every other guest after Macron’s latest turn on Ukraine is instructive and fun. It’s also a remarkable example of how centre-left and centre-right French opinion on the use of force has been transformed by this war. Last and most, I’m sorry to be a broken record this was an especially enjoyable The Next Level from The Bulwark on Banana Republicans.