Can Hungary be considered a democratic country? What challenges does the potential Donald Trump’s victory in the United States pose to democracy? And what is it that the Action for Democracy aims for?
For two weeks now, Fidesz has completely lost control of the Hungarian political discourse, something that has not been seen for a long time, especially to this extent.
The most controversial Hungarian story in recent memory includes the resignation of Hungary’s President and a former Minister of Justice, a presidential pardon for an accomplice in a pedophilia crime, and, as it turns out, the leader of the Hungarian Reformed Church. It recently came to light that in 2022 Katalin Novák pardoned a man, who was convicted of coercion while aiding a pedophile in covering up his crimes.
Demography, fewer and fewer children being born, population decline, aging society, migration, crisis; when we talk about demography in the European Union today, these are the primary factors we think about. We hear it a lot, but how big is the real “crisis”?
In the first half of 2023, almost weekly protests were held over the education system in Budapest, Hungary. In some cases they were organized by teachers’ unions, in others they were planned by students. Based on the study done by the Republikon Institute, 62% of the Hungarian population rate the education system as “bad” (Republikon, 2023).
The railway line between Budapest and the West-Hungarian town of Győr is being renovated to breathe new life into the struggling public railway system. Győr, incidentally my hometown, features two university buildings connected by a skybridge shaped like a railway car. As of recently, these few meters are the only reliable means of long-distance transportation that railcars can carry passengers in the country.
Diplomatic relations between Hungary and the United States date back to the aftermath of World War I, when all states came to the conclusion that the globe is not a group of geographically isolated regions anymore, but a community. Consequently, all states affect one another, and mutually beneficial relations can only be established if they all cooperate.
The healthcare system has always been one of the most crucial points of a country’s social security, especially in Hungary’s case. In the last 15-20 years the Hungarian healthcare system went through a lot of changes and the general consensus is that despite the state insurance, the services aren’t sufficient.
The X platform (formerly Twitter) might not be the most popular platform in the CEE region, but posts regarding a European Parliament committee’s visit to Hungary in May 2023 gained attention nevertheless. An analysis revealed that the posts about the visit were targeted by suspected inauthentic accounts in an attempt to discredit any perceived opponent of the Hungarian ruling party.
The Hungarian government is pandering to its elderly voters through nostalgia. However, unlike other populists who promise to bring back a glorious and nonexistent past, the Hungarian leadership is putting hammer and sickle to work on bringing back communism – an era when their pensioner voter base was young and when absolutely nothing functioned properly.
