The conflict of interest of individual parties in Hungary proved to be the opposition’s great weakness, the 2018 election results illustrate this perfectly: The national electoral system was shaped by the 2010 Fidesz government to favor large parties, including winner compensation and different types of gerrymandering.
I’m truly rooting for the bill on separating the church from the state, which was announced by Polish Initiative headed by Barbara Nowacka on Epiphany. Of course, let’s not kid ourselves that such an initiative has any chance of succeeding in the current Polish Parliament.
We are on the brink of a very busy political season in Poland. The year 2018 might have been a prelude to the election year, but the times of decision making are still ahead. The decisions that will have an impact on not merely one electoral term but the consequences of which will last a decade to come.
Today, I have some very bad news. Yes, this is the end of democracy in Poland. Yesterday (2015 parliamentary elections), the votes of Poles began this process, today it is in the middle, and tomorrow (2019 parliamentary elections), it may end with the death of the free Republic of Poland as we know it.
Republikon Institute organized a conference during which political analysts, activists, and representatives of Hungarian opposition parties discussed what to expect after the April elections.
When, back in April 2015, I had the honour and pleasure of setting up NowoczesnaPL with Ryszard Petru and 19 other eminent individuals, we didn’t expect that Law and Justice (PiS) would be able to ruin Poland to the extent that it has. For ruining the country is exactly what it is doing.
Katarzyna Lubnauer’s declarations (made right after winning in the vote for the leader of the Nowoczesna party) in favor of integral liberalism – both ideological and economic – are a beacon of hope that the new leadership may bring a change in quality of the party.
Since its accession to power, the national conservative government, appointed by the PiS party (Law and Justice), is systematically altering the state in order to secure its power on a permanent basis. The opposition is having a hard time. The fact that the electoral law should now be adapted to the party’s needs is not really surprising.
Today, as I am writing this piece, I’m undoubtedly setting the cat among the pigeos and I’m looking forward to see the maddened pigeons to advance. Let them even attack me, personally. By setting the aforementioned cat among the pigeons I’m hereby declaring: let the nationalists parade and let the Law and Justice (PiS) party support them.
Karácsony believes that political liberalism works best in Northern states, which are not classical liberal countries, but highly redistributive policies and various welfare state services are implemented. These countries also follow the model of consensus democracy, which should also be applied in Hungary.
