While the parliamentary opposition is gaining little in the polls and is still struggling to mobilise its supporters for demonstrations, too, left-leaning civil organisations are increasingly successful at harnessing the growing unpopularity of the Fidesz government. Well-attended as civil rallies may be, in the long-run Fidesz can only be defeated at the ballot box. One of the prominent organisations behind the street demonstrations, 4K!, has drawn the appropriate conclusion and is turning into a political party. Others may follow. The tacit non-aggression agreement between the left-wing opposition parties and the civil movement may suffer as a result. The crucial question for the growing number of players on the political left will be how to compete and co-operate at the same time – for without co-operation they are undermining any chances of ousting Fidesz.
Policy Solutions' analysis on 4K!'s decision to form a political party can be downloaded from here.
Policy Solutions is a progressive political research institute based in Budapest. It was founded in 2008 and it is committed to the values of liberal democracy, solidarity, equal opportunity, sustainability and European integration. The focus of Policy Solutions’ work is on understanding political processes in Hungary and the European Union. Among the pre-eminent areas of our research are the investigation of how the quality of democracy evolves, the analysis of factors driving euroscepticism, populism and the far-right, and election research.
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