How Hungary Ousted an Authoritarian

Prefer to read? Check out the Audio Transcript

Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription software errors.

Emma Varvaloucas: Welcome to the What Could Go Right Progress Report, where we dive into all the good stuff that you probably missed because it’s buried under the barrage of bad stuff that you definitely didn’t miss. If you’re new here. Hey, I’m Emma Varvaloucas . I’m the Executive director of The Progress Network, and if you’re tuning back in, welcome back.

We’re super excited to have you here for season eight. You’ve probably noticed that democracy has been taking a beating lately, but something just happened that feels almost too good to be true. Hungary just voted out their 16 year authoritarian Prime Minister. Mm. It feels so good when democracy prevails.

In this episode, I’m gonna break down what happens, why it matters, and what the rest of the world, including the US can learn from it. We’ve also got a recent climate win to share, some stats about how rental prices are dropping across the US, and a particular Asian country that has finally criminalized those creepy dudes sliding into your DMs.

So stick around ’cause you definitely don’t wanna miss those stories.

Starting with Viktor Orban, if you’ve been following global politics at all over the last decade, the name probably sounds very familiar. He has been Hungary’s Prime Minister for an astonishing 16 years, and during that time he’s been systematically dismantling the country’s democratic institutions.

So all of our faves, right? Packing the courts. Taking over the media, rewriting the electoral rules to benefit himself and his party. His specific brand of Christian nationalism also has a very clear link to the far right in the United States. It became a model for thought leaders and politicians in the US after the Hungarian government allegedly spent millions of euros on lobbyists.

Scholars actually have a term for what Orban built in Hungary, and that’s electoral autocracy, which means that elections still happen, but the game is so heavily rigged in or bond’s favor that winning is basically impossible for anybody else. The opposition tried to beat him four times. They lost every single time.

Until now, the opposition party, which by the way is called Tisza, led by Peter Magyar, they didn’t just win. They actually won a super majority in Parliament. And get this: Orban then conceded defeat. Unlike some other leaders of other countries who remain unnamed, there was no violence on the streets. No angry protestors, not even an appeals process through the court.

What was done was done, and Orban accepted it. By the way, those electoral rules that Orban had changed to disproportionately reward himself election after election? That actually turned out to be the thing. That guaranteed his defeat. So that was just an extra welcome cherry of irony on top of an extremely delicious sundae.

So who is going to be replacing Orban? His name is Peter Magyar. He’s relatively young, he’s a politician and a lawyer. He went viral very early in the election cycle for speaking out about the corruption of Orban’s government.

And by the way, Magyar is kind of a defector from that government. So he’s talking about it from the inside. Plus, the super majority that he won means that he’ll actually have enough seats to start undoing the democratic damage that Orban had wreaked upon the system. I’m not saying the road ahead is going to be smooth, it’s definitely not, but they have some room to maneuver, unlike in some other places like Poland where the vote ousted in a liberal government, but they kind of got stuck after that.

So how did Magyar finally manage to oust Orban? I mean, besides his stashing good looks. Let’s get into it. First, Orban’s government had basically racked up failures that were too big to ignore. First among them was economic mismanagement. Hungary went from relatively rich for that neighborhood of the world to the poorest country in the European Union.

Second, Magyar was not just playing to his base. He was always trying to reach beyond his own camp to swell its ranks. His messaging was also deliberately not fear-based and not angry. It was hopeful and it was positive. During his victory speech, the crowd chanted this—crowd chants “we are not afraid”—which is a direct response to ban’s political brand, which really emphasized fearmongering, war, threat, catastrophe, destruction.

Third, and this is the part that I’m super excited about: Gen Z showed up. Voter turnout across Hungary approached 80%, which is a record for them, and frankly, remarkable for any country. And support for Magyar was strongest by far amongst Hungarians under 30. I kind of feel like on behalf of all the other generations, millennials, boomers, Gen X, we owe Gen Z an official apology.

So here it is. I’m sorry that we’ve been so mean to you. You’re actually, you’re kind of doing great. Gen Z enthusiasm is part of the pattern we’re seeing globally, and that’s what I mean by they’re doing great. It’s not just Hungary, okay. Voter turnout has been key to ousting illiberal governments in Brazil and in Poland.

And actually you’re seeing this kind of voter registration on steroids, let’s say, happening in the US now as people are prepping for the midterm elections that are coming up.

Okay. So for countries that are going through a period of democratic backsliding right now, don’t give up, take encouragement from Hungary. Now is the time to keep pressing forward.

All right, let’s get into our quick hits for today. First off, I’m happy to announce that the human race has not destroyed every single corner of the planet and all of the species in it. At least not yet.

More than 10% of the world’s oceans are now protected more than 1.9 million square miles of ocean. That’s across Indonesia, Thailand, French Polynesia, Australia, and Antarctica. Altogether, an area larger than the European Union have been protected in just the past two years alone. Conservationists are aiming for something even more ambitious to protect 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030, which should be approximately the size of the Indian Ocean. I’m not sure if we’re gonna get there, but we really are making progress.

And for the next story, rents are falling in cities across the US. Yes, you did hear that right. And to the metropolitan dwellers whose ears just perked up. Contain yourself. Contain yourself. According to a Vox report, the national median rent has dropped 1.7% in one year.

That might not sound particularly impressive, but there have been even bigger declines in certain beloved, but expensive cities, for instance, Austin, Texas. Why? Well, the pandemic era, surge for demand in housing has finally been met with construction booms that are happening in cities across the country.

So hopefully exorbitantly high rents might not be keeping us stuck much longer living with our parents or our exes or our soon to be exes.

And for our final story, I mentioned at the beginning that this Asian country is criminalizing creepy DMs. This country has actually been doing a bunch of relatively progressive stuff lately.

They recently became the only southeast Asian country to legalize same-sex marriage. I mentioned their name only a few minutes ago. It’s Thailand. So yes, Thailand has formally criminalized sexual harassment, including online. The amendment is a pretty major deal because it’s the first time that sexual harassment has been recognized as its own separate offense in the penal code, and it covers everything.

It covers physical touch, it covers words, gestures, stalking. You name it. The laws protection also extends to people of all genders, which is super cool given that a lot of these laws fail to be inclusive. And along with a revised penal code, the country also recently introduced a Take it Down procedure, which fast tracks the removal of violating or obscene online content linked to harassment cases, which honestly is a lot more than the social media platforms I’ve managed. So looking at you, CEOs of YouTube and Meta.

And that’s all for this week’s progress report. I hope that these stories give you a glimmer of hope to hold onto in the constant barrage of very scary world news. Remember, there is a lot of good happening in the world. We’re just not paying attention to it.

If you got some value from this show. Maybe a little nugget to bring up at your next dinner party. Please feel free to send this show to somebody who needs a little bit of positive news. Make sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Also, please make sure to follow us on your preferred podcast platform, and if the spirit moves you, leave us a review.

If you’re someone who’s still literate—we’re still out here, guys!—and you would prefer to see these stories and even more in their written form, you can sign up to our newsletter. The link is in the description. The Progress Report is part of The Progress Network. This show is hosted and written by me, Emma Varvaloucas, produced by Jenny Churchill and India Witkin with the support of Kaleidoscope.

​