The Rubik’s Cube was invented by the Hungarian architect Erno Rubik in 1974. An object of national pride, the invention, as it allows for an immense number of ways to arrange colors, is the most faithful graphic representation of the stage of democracy in the country: rebuilding the brakes and balances dismantled, one by one, for 12 years of rule by Viktor Orbán requires patience and awareness that the game is long term.
The defeat of the Hungarian opposition this Sunday (3) was humiliating, not only because of the numbers that indicate a significant victory for Fidesz, Orbán’s party; but especially for questioning the strategy of the six opposition parties, from the left to the extreme right, to unite for the first time around a single candidate (the conservative mayor Péter Márki-Zay).
For the opposition, the icing on the cake of this Sunday’s humiliation came with the news that Márki-Zay didn’t even win in his own constituency, Hódmezővásárhely.
The lesson to be learned from the failure of the opposition in Hungary is not the poor choice of unity strategy — it was probably the best thing to do within the art of the possible. Orbán’s fifth victory teaches that even the best short-term electoral strategy is not capable of reversing the long-term game that the prime minister has been playing since taking office in 2010: capturing the Hungarian state for himself and his allies — a task that in which it has been very successful.
Orbán managed to modify the electoral rules in his favor, especially with legal changes in 2020 during the state of emergency due to the pandemic, without due public consultation and taking advantage of a qualified two-thirds majority in Parliament.
Although the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) did not find any fraud in its report, it sent a large number of observers to Hungary and highlighted points of attention in electoral practices.
Among them, we can mention the change of the electoral system from two rounds to one; the increase in single-district terms compared to party-list seats; creating barriers for Hungarians living outside the country, especially those without a registered address in Hungary, to vote by post; leniency with the practice of fictitious addresses for voters to vote in districts where they do not live; the disparity of resources between opposition and government for electoral propaganda; and the dominance of the Hungarian media by the premier’s allies.
Hungarian autocracy under Órban is sophisticated. On the one hand, it co-opts the State, through successive elections that allow, with the use of administrative rules, to capture democratic institutions for their allies in a process of gradual but assertive deterioration of democracy. The guide on how to become an autocrat, in the footsteps of Órban, teaches that re-election means consolidation of power.
On the other hand, the prime minister offers a political imagery of strong appeal to voters, especially in rural areas of the country. With Orbán, anti-gender and anti-LGBT politics combine with anti-migration and anti-Brussels stances to form a sophisticated Rubik’s Cube based on the politics of enmity: “fear the enemies we build” — the enemies being others, the LGBTs who will destroy your family, the migrants who will steal their jobs and the EU bureaucrats who will take control of their lives.
The main example of Orbán’s imagery was having held a referendum alongside the election campaign whose official objective was to “protect” children from LGBTQIA+ propaganda. The referendum served two purposes: to create an imaginary enemy through disinformation and to remind voters of what would be at stake in the main election for Parliament, diverting attention, like a smokescreen, from the economic crisis and signs of misuse. and corruption with EU money in Hungary.
When it is verified that Fidesz has molded Hungarian electoral laws and practices to its face, it is clear that the opposition, now united, and Orbán, again victorious, are playing at different times: it remains to be seen whether, after this Sunday’s defeat, the opposition will dismantle again or persist in the game of patience to not only try to win the next elections, but mainly to take control of Hungarian institutions from Orbán, from the judiciary to universities, through the economy and the media.
Even Russia’s war against Ukraine could not change the favorable winds for Orbán. The Hungarian leader has close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “If you want to analyze the election campaign, you need to draw a line on February 24 [dia da invasão russa na Ucrânia]”, Andrea Virág, director of strategy at the Republikon Institute research center in Budapest, told CNN. Orbán’s tactic was to build an unrealistic image based on the dichotomy of peace versus war.
The Hungarian prime minister called the opposition thirsty for war given its pro-Ukraine stance, while he preferred to invest in a self-image of a pacifist, even if in reverse. Orbán’s campaign avoided criticizing Putin and spread posters around the country that read: “We will preserve the peace and security of Hungary,” suggesting neutrality.
The reality is different: neither the Orbán government has stopped pro-Ukraine efforts in the European Union and NATO, nor has the opposition suggested the country’s military involvement in the war. It doesn’t matter: in Orbán’s Rubik’s Cube, you sleep with Putin, but you make a sign of peace and love.
The Russian question is important in the Hungarian geopolitical context for several reasons. Putin and Orbán have long-standing strong personal ties, especially since Russia is the example of illiberalism that Orbán admires. While the Russian Chancellor awarded his Hungarian counterpart Russia’s highest honor to foreigners, Hungary’s diplomacy information system was compromised by the cyber-invasion by Russian intelligence services. Even that did not shake the bonds of friendship.
Another point is intra-European: Orbán’s resistance to condemning Putin for the war in Ukraine puts him on a collision course with the right-wing leaders of the Visegrád Group, made up of Slovakia, Poland and the Czech Republic, as well as Hungary itself.
The leaders of the first three countries visited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev in March, and Poland, another leader in destroying democracies, is expressly opposed to the war initiated by Russia, unlike Orbán. Analysts have seen that, in this way, a window of opportunity opens up to further isolate the Hungarian in the European bloc, even among regimes tending towards autocracy.
What Sunday in Hungary teaches us is that autocrats, when successively re-elected, become steeped in power — a lesson that we should do well to heed for the Brazilian elections of 2022. Today Orbán stays, and the opposition loses in a humiliating way.
It is not known, however, whether the broad front will rise, united despite internal contradictions, from this fiasco to continue the long-term game that is to rebuild democracy. In the Rubik’s Cube and in politics, you can only win if, with patience and obstinacy, you keep playing.
