elections

In February 2024, Hungarian public life, previously marked by apathy, underwent a dramatic shift. A political scandal that reached the highest levels of government awakened Hungarian society. This rapid change reshaped Hungary\'s political landscape within a few months and significantly shifted voter preferences. The party system was not spared from this rapid transformation either, and it can be clearly illustrated through Sartori’s party typology.

Employment policy has been crucial to the success of Fidesz, Hungary\'s governing party since 2010. Their so-called \'work-based society\', which has led to skyrocketing employment rates, combined with a lack of political alternatives, has made poor, geographically isolated, ethnically diverse regions much more likely to vote for Fidesz.

Georgia held a voting for the parliament on October 26, which was an interesting event by any means. Here are some facts and analysis. The Georgian Dream party (Ivanishvili) claimed a 54% victory in the voting, getting 89 mandates out of 150 (that is not enough for constitutional changes.). The four major pro-western opposition coalitions also claimed they won the elections in total, though the official count was 40+% of their total votes.

Paris will host one of the most important sporting events this year - the Summer Olympic Games. And the race is already on, with nearly half of all voters worldwide expected to go to the ballot box this year. Nine parliamentary elections will occur or already have occurred in European countries alone, with thousands of candidates competing for 720 seats in the European Parliament.

Lithuanian Free Market Institute (LFMI) presented \"The Election Book. Mandate for Leadership\". The publication discusses the problems of state governance and the economy and provides recommendations for a breakthrough. As the patron of the event, Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen, Speaker of the Parliament of the Republic of Lithuania, underscored the unique value of the \"The Election Book. Mandate for Leadership\" for political parties.

On June 9, Hungary held the elections for the European Parliament along with its local elections to choose mayors and councilors. The elections saw a record turnout of 58.1 %, but the most interesting election, the Budapest mayoral election with a turnout of 60.51%, resulted in a very high number of spoiled ballots, at 2.98%.

On June 4 and 18, 1989, partially free elections for the Sejm and fully free elections for the reconstituted Senate were held in Poland. As a result of these elections, a democratic political system was established, and decisive economic reforms were initiated between 1989 and 1990, which included stabilization and free-market changes. Poland was the first socialist country to begin departing from the system imposed by force, which was flawed.

2024 is a turbulent year in Hungarian politics, and this is especially true for the capital. New alliances have been formed, while at the same time, some previous cooperation has so broken down that the parties are running against each other.

On April 7, 2024 millions of Polish citizens went to the voting commissions to cast their ballots in this year’s local elections. Following the recent triumph of the \"democratic coalition\" over Law and Justice and a subsequent change of government in December, many got their hopes up for a landslide victory in early spring.

This year will undoubtedly be crucial for the future of democracy. As Professor Timothy D. Snyder, specializing in this area, says, it could be a year of either a breakdown and further prolonged recession of democracy worldwide or a breakthrough and the defense of these democracies. They will manage to confront the growing populism, disinformation, and tremendous pressure from authoritarian systems.