Photo: GPO
Last week, the unthinkable happened: Viktor Orbán lost an election. Péter Magyar defeated the far-right populist Prime Minister and thousands of Hungarians took to the streets to celebrate.
What would it take to change Israel’s political trajectory? In the leadup to the election, NIF grantees sought to find out. A group of NIF researchers went to Hungary to learn from the political movement that ultimately made the impossible happen. They were there to gather lessons-learned by observing the parallels to Israel, where elections will take place this year. The group spent four days in Hungary, learning from Hungarian experts and leaders and watching the unfolding political process.
Among those on the trip was Dr. Yonatan Levi, a researcher at the London School of Economics and a fellow at Molad – the Center for the Renewal of Israeli Democracy. Dr. Levi’s work focuses on democratic backsliding and how to resist it. He spoke about his trip to Hungary, how his team will apply their research, and why he still has hope for a more democratic future in Israel.
Q: Why did you decide to go to Hungary?
Hungary has been a model for many populist and anti-democratic politicians around the world in their attempt to erode democratic institutions and norms—both their political techniques and much of their legislation itself has been adopted by anti-democratic actors within Israeli politics. The principles of [the Israeli government’s] judicial overhaul, for example, were imported [from Hungary] to Israel.
Before the election, the assumption was that Orbán would never, ever lose [because] he had changed the electoral system and the way elections are run so dramatically. But once it became evident that there was a new party and civic movement that actually might be able to beat him, those who pay attention to Hungarian politics in Israel understood that there might be something to learn. [With Orbán’s defeat] Hungary turned from this cautionary tale to an optimistic case of something that one can draw lessons from.
Q: How did you spend your time there?
We met with a very wide variety of political and civil society actors—pollsters, activists, consultants, academics and researchers, leaders of the Jewish community, international election observers—to try to understand the state of affairs and to learn from them. We also talked to Hungarians on the streets and at political rallies, including Orbán supporters.
We met with all of these people trying to understand what was happening, and how come? How did this new party and civic movement suddenly emerge in a country that was expected to be ruled by Orbán until his retirement? How do they cope with an electoral system that is so tilted towards the regime? What can opposition actors in Israel learn from the Hungarian case?
Q: What was your biggest takeaway?
First and foremost, we learned that the improbable and unpredictable can happen. This is really a message of hope.
In many senses, the Hungarian system has been corrupted to a much larger extent than the Israeli one. For example, Orbán completely dominates the media in Hungary. That’s not the case of Israel. Israel also has a very strong civil society, a very dynamic protest movement. It has a business community that is highly involved and that opposes many of the government’s plans.
So the main conclusion is that if this was done in Hungary, then this can surely be done in a place like Israel. This is, first and foremost, a matter of political imagination: of people not giving up on a better future that is within willing reach.
Q: What do you think Israel can learn from Magyar’s campaign?
We were very impressed by the way in which Magyar refused to let Orbán set the terms of the debate. The superpower that populist leaders [like Orbán] often have is their ability to set the terms of public conversation using their language, charisma, provocations, and control of the media. Instead of just responding to Orbán’s provocations, Magyar led his own agenda, and he did this very aggressively and energetically. He visited the smallest villages. He put on big rallies—sometimes six [or] seven a day. He used social media to his advantage, because the legacy media was basically a propaganda machine for the government.
Another impressive thing was how Magyar differentiated himself from the current regime. He tied the worsening economic conditions to the fact that Orbán and his circle were getting richer. He didn’t speak in abstract terms about democracy so much as connecting what people saw in their everyday lives to what Orbán was doing. It made it very concrete for people.
Another thing that we learned from Magyar is that it’s really important to come with a very detailed outline of what to do once you take power. He has been very clear about his plan for repairing the independence of media outlets and of the constitutional courts, and also making sure that Orbán related corruption cases are thoroughly investigated by the police.
Q: What’s next for your findings?
We’re writing detailed reports about what we learned there. We are also giving many talks, both to the broad public and to activist, political, and civil society groups in Israel.
The idea is to disseminate the information to as many people as possible within the liberal camp in Israel, while keeping in mind the significant differences between the countries. We’re certainly not going for a cut-and-paste approach; the lessons must be adapted to the unique circumstances in Israel.