Democracy and political freedom in Hungary have entered a strange period in which no one single event has caused a total downslide, but a conglomeration of events has caused a creeping loss of democracy in the nation. There has been a constantly slide starting nearly a decade ago, as the country’s democratic foundations are undermined in almost every area. As a result, democracy in Hungary is teetering on the edge, and while the country could still be considered a free democracy today, that reputation is being threatened a little more with each passing year.
One event that evidences the changes in Hungary and helped to harm the country’s freedom score occurred in 2016. The controlling government in the country instituted a Sunday shopping ban. This was very unpopular, and the opposition party sought to put in place a referendum measure that would allow the people to show their displeasure. When that opposition party leader went to the National Election Office to file the documentation for this referendum, there were armed men there to keep the filing from taking place. This was a clear case of intimidation on the part of those men, who subverted democracy and used force to protect the governing party from facing any public scrutiny. Eventually, the referendum filing was accepted after there was some public backlash. However, the ruling party was able to ditch the shopping ban before the referendum could receive a vote, again avoiding public scrutiny and taking advantage of the extra time afforded to them by the intimidation on the part of the armed men.
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Other issues before have pushed Hungary to the brink with an incremental loss in its actual democracy. In 2010, the country held elections, in which the Young Democrats’ Alliance–Hungarian Civic Union, partnering with the Christian Democratic People’s Party, was able to gain a vast supermajority of the seats in the legislature. The power was deeply concentrated with one party, which led in 2011 to talk of amending the Constitution and removing some of the democratic freedoms that had long been a staple in Hungary. Beyond that, when people began to protest during this time, the government used force to subvert these protests. It was during this year that the government also put more pressure on media, leading to a tricky situation in which there was at once too much power in the hands of a single party of government and a lack of ability for a neutral media to police this powerful party.
Overall, Hungary is still a democracy, but it is on the verge of slipping into something less savory. Democracy has been chipped away slowly rather than all at once. It has reached a concerning level.
Political liberties in Hungary have been slowly slipping away, as evidenced by this chart. The new elections and the changes to the Constitution caused a loss of political liberty in 2013 and 2014. In 2016, corruption at the top, and the Sunday shopping ban scandal, caused a further erosion. The country is trending in the wrong direction, with most of its institutions slipping further from democracy as the years pass.
- Freedom House. (2017). Nations in Transit—Hungary. Retrieved from https://freedomhouse.org/
