Parliamentary Elections in Hungary and its Autocratization

On April 3, Viktor Orbán’s national-conservative Fidesz party won a two-thirds majority in Hungary’s general elections. Hungary quickly turned into one of the world’s top autocratizers after Fidesz came to power in 2010. This graph of the week unveils how Orbán and his ruling party have gradually eroded democracy in Hungary.

Over the past decade, 90% of private media in Hungary have been bought up by Orbán and his allies. They almost exclusively broadcast the party’s messages, giving little to no air time to the opposition. This is reflected by the decreasing scores on government censorship efforts and media bias indicators. The autonomy of the Election Management Body (EMB) has also declined since 2010, prompting the OSCE to send 200 observers to monitor the voting in the 2022 election. Finally, worsening repression of Civil Society Organisations has been most frequently used to repress the NGOs that questioned the party’s policies. All these trends open questions about the fairness of the election result in 2022.

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