Win victory in a democracy: Just give the people what they want and need

Elites worldwide are saying that incoming Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar’s win is a template for how to beat conservative populism worldwide. Recent developments in Romania and Bulgaria show how wrong that view is.

Romania should have been a perfect example of how the Magyar template is transferable to other countries. Magyar’s Tisza party combined all of the non-populist elements in Hungary, allowing it to win a majority against Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz-KDNP alliance. Romania’s government was a four-party coalition of all the non-populist parties, from the centre-left Social Democrats to the centre-right National Liberal Party (PNL). The coalition partners were traditional adversaries, and their union was primarily designed to keep the populist Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) out of power.

The coalition has now collapsed because even the prospect of holding back the populists could not suppress these parties’ significant differences. The Social Democrats have withdrawn from the government in protest over the PNL’s austerity policies, designed to reduce the country’s massive budget deficit. They have even said they will join AUR in a motion of no confidence to dissolve the government. Apparently, the populists aren’t so scary that the Social Democrats won’t use their parliamentary presence to push the government to the Left.

This is eerily similar to the dance that has made France a case study in ungovernability since 2024’s snap legislative vote. Parties ranging from the far-left La France Insoumise (LFI) to the centre-right Republicans joined forces in a “republican front” in the contest’s second round to defeat Marine Le Pen’s conservative populist National Rally (RN). 

They won, but the team of rivals has fallen apart under the pressure of governing. Two prime ministers have lost power since then, and the third has only barely maintained his power by negotiating a deal on the budget that satisfies neither the Republicans nor the Left. RN has in the meantime only grown in strength in polls as the French increasingly look to it as the only party capable of providing clear direction.

Magyar was only able to create a genuinely unified opposition because Orbán had held power for sixteen years. His four election victories forced the Hungarian Left to fall in line behind Magyar’s thoroughly centrist agenda. Apparently only the reality of populists wielding power for long periods of time can create genuine unity.

Orbán’s failures in power were also crucial to Magyar’s triumph. The Fidesz government had presided over four consecutive years of economic stagnation, combined with a high rate of inflation. Magyar didn’t win because Hungarians “stood up for democracy”. They already had democracy; Hungarians stood for up a return to prosperity just as voters in democracies worldwide always do.

Bulgaria’s recent election shows how populism is attractive to voters when traditional parties fail. Last month’s snap vote was eighth in five years as the traditional parties – the centre-right GERB-SDS, centre-left Socialists, and Turkish-minority rights party Movement for Rights and Freedom – could not create a stable government. Various populist and anti-corruption parties had come and gone over that time, but steadily gained vote share as the old guard continued to flail. Those parties ranged from the far-right, Russophilic to anti-corruption centrists, and together they obtained over 46 per cent of the vote in the October 2024 contest.

President Rumen Radev’s decision to resign his office and form a new political party, Progressive Bulgaria, proved to the decision that broke this stalemate. His party offered something for all of those who wanted to break from the traditional parties. His pre-presidential association with the Socialists reassured the old Left, while his anti-corruption stance excited populists motivated by that issue. He had also tilted toward Russia with respect to the European Union’s ongoing support for Ukraine, allowing him to appeal to more nationalist-minded populists.

His ability to unite the various strands of populism allowed Progressive Bulgaria to win an outright majority of seats, the first time a single party could govern alone since 1997. Many who support the Brussels consensus now worry that Radev could become a pro-Russian voice within the EU.

Radev was able to win a majority government because, like in Romania, the traditional parties proved unable to solve Bulgaria’s problems. Magyar was able to win a supermajority because Orbán had also failed. There is no secret formula for victory in a democracy: Just give the people what they want and need, and they will elect you – whether you’re a populist or not.