The good news for liberal democrats is by now familiar. In the last six weeks the ideal of liberal democracy has been revived by what is now at least the bastion of liberal democracy worldwide, Ukraine. Similarly, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has been transformed not just into a hero but a savior.
The bad news for liberal democrats is less familiar. It is that in elections held last weekend, in two other eastern European countries, one Hungary, the other Serbia, liberal democrats lost, and illiberal autocrats won.
To the United States and most of Europe, Serbia is less important. It is smaller and less significant. More to the point, Serbia is not a member either of NATO or the European Union (EU). Still, it’s worth noting its incumbent president, Aleksandar Vucic, won a landslide victory not despite of his populist, pro-Russian stance, even after the invasion of Ukraine, but because of it. No surprise then, that in his victory speech Vucic said that while Serbia still hoped to join the EU, it would nevertheless continue its “friendly partnership with Russia.” And no surprise that in the wake of his victory, Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, congratulated Vucic, especially on his “independent foreign policies.”
The fourth term win by Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban presents the West with more of a problem. Unlike Serbia, Hungary is a member of both NATO and the EU, which explains why Orban has been a thorn in the side of both for years.
He is a self-styled “illiberal democrat” who rewrote the constitution, filled the top courts with his appointees, and changed the electoral system to his outrageous advantage. Hungary is, and has been for years, a country devoid of the institutional checks and balances, anything like a free press, and the competitive elections, that give meaning to the word “democracy.” No wonder after Orban’s landslide win Putin congratulated his pal – they met several times over the years – sending him a message that read in part, “Despite the difficult international situation, the further development of bilateral ties of partnership fully accords with the interests of the people of Russia and Hungary.”
Orban is a strongman at a moment when, notwithstanding the situation in Ukraine, strongmen are strong. They are everywhere in evidence, in capitals all over the world, from Beijing to Brasilia, from Ankara to Manila. Moreover, Putin himself is standing tall where to him it matters – in Russia. To be sure, polls out of Russia are not the most reliable. Additionally, there are several good explanations for why his numbers have recently gone up. They include: hundreds of thousands of his strongest opponents have left the country; those that are left are too scared openly to oppose him; he has made the media a closed shop; and the “rally ‘round the flag” effect, which means that during a crisis, especially a war, followers support whoever is their leader.
Still, since Putin’s people invaded Ukraine, his numbers went from high to even higher. In January his approval rating was 69%. By the end of March, it climbed to 83%. A sobering reminder to Americans that our values are not universally shared. A sobering reminder to the American president that calling his autocratic counterpart a “war criminal” and a “butcher” might gratify some of the people some of the time. But it will not gratify all the people all the time.