“Illiberal power-grabbing techniques are becoming routine in government, almost normalized around the world,” our Co-director Renata Uitz writes in her op-ed in Magyar Narancs.
The return of Brazil’s new president, Lula “has reason to excite constitutional democrats around the world,” because “it seems to prove that, with broad political and social mobilization and the occasional fair democratic election, a president who enjoys strong social support but is more interested in power-grabbing than democratic governance can be replaced. This impression is reinforced by the Democratic Party's support in the US mid-term congressional elections in November,” she argues.
Nevertheless, “it is hard to deny the enduring social support for far-right parties and illiberal political actors. One only has to think of Meloni's success in Italy, or the fact that Brazilian voters gave a majority in both houses of the legislature and many governorships to candidates sympathetic to Bolsonaro,” she continues, adding that “a spirit of political violence mixed with conspiracy theories has arguably arrived in Europe.”
Read the full article (in Hungarian, subscription may be required) here.