Donald Tusk in Warsaw, Poland on October 1, 2021 (Photo by Mateusz Wlodarczyk/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
OF THE TWO UPCOMING PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS in Central Europe, Slovakia’s and Poland’s, the latter, scheduled for October 15, is bound to attract more international attention. The reason is not only Poland’s size but also the fact that some will see it as a test of the country’s democracy almost a decade into rule by the populist-nationalist Law and Justice Party (PiS). In reality, however, the Slovak election on September 30 bears a much more disconcerting message about the state of moderate, pro-Western politics in the region.
Whatever the outcome of Poland’s election, the center will hold. PiS might seek to turn Poland into an autocracy, but it faces a formidable center-right force in the Civic Platform (PO). Even if PO loses, it can rely on its deep bench—most importantly, the hugely talented mayor of Warsaw, Rafał Trzaskowski—to make a comeback in the presidential election next year or in 2027.
The central story of the Slovak election, by contrast, is the complete implosion of the country’s center right. Five years after losing power in the 2018 elections, Robert Fico, the leader of the populist-nationalist Smer (“Direction,” nominally a member of the Party of European Socialists) is poised to return to power, more embittered and anti-Western than ever. Fico has been skeptical of the European Union, friendly toward Russia, opposed to allowing Western arms shipments to traverse Slovakia en route to neighboring Ukraine, and critical of Slovak-American defense cooperation.
His main opponent is Progressive Slovakia (PS), a left-liberal party belonging to Emmanuel Macron’s Renew Europe group, catering primarily to a highly educated, socially liberal, and heavily urban electorate. (Full disclosure: Between 2018 and 2020, I was a member of SPOLU, a center-right party that ran a common candidate list with PS in the 2020 parliamentary election.) Led by Michal Šimečka, a political scientist with an Oxford Ph.D. and a scion of a venerable family of Czechoslovak dissidents, PS has been the first political group to explicitly emphasize topics such as LGBT rights and climate change. That puts them definitively on the social left in conservative Central Europe.
Six months ago, Smer was tied with its breakaway rival, Hlas (“Voice”) Social Democratic Party, atop the polls. Since then, PS has overtaken Hlas and Smer has pulled out to a strong lead. In other words, Slovakia has seen in the last six months what so many other democracies have seen in the last decade or so: The left is dominated by the traditional social-democratic progressive parties and movements, while the right is overtaken by populist nationalists; the traditional center right becomes an afterthought.
Two former center-right prime ministers—the lackluster Eduard Heger and Mikuláš Dzurinda, a hero of the 2000s—are leading parties that are each polling at less than 3 percent. Freedom and Solidarity, a pro-market, fiscally austere liberal party will struggle to meet the 5-percent threshold to enter parliament, as will the Christian Democrats, who are increasingly catering to the crowded reactionary field attacking PS’s perceived elitism and supposedly extreme liberal mores.
By contrast, in Poland, PO’s leader, Donald Tusk, former prime minister and president of the European Council, has a striking chance of returning to premiership. The main difference between Slovakia’s situation and that of its neighbors—not just Poland but also the Czech Republic and Austria—is the low level of institutionalization of parties, which typically rise and fall with their leaders. Among the parties currently in the Slovak parliament, only Smer had a presence in the chamber twenty years ago. Contrast that with the Czech governing coalition, led by Civic Democrats (founded in 1991, in government 1992-1998, 2006-2009, 2010-2013) and two other center-right parties, both firmly institutionalized. Other than the liberal NEOS (founded in 2014) and the Greens (founded in 1986), the parties represented today in Austria’s parliament have been there throughout the country’s post-war existence.
The absence of professionally run, durable political parties, particularly in the moderate center, makes for a dangerous situation. A recent New York Times report is right to warn that the upcoming election can easily turn Slovakia, a staunch ally of Ukraine, into “a bystander more sympathetic to Moscow”—a risk that is completely absent in Poland. Scott Mainwaring, a political scientist who is credited with the idea, argued that weak party institutionalization encourages personalistic politics and leads to democratic erosion. “Parties can polarize and act intransigently in ways that make democracies vulnerable to breakdown, “ he wrote, “or they can manage conflict in ways that can sustain democracy even in difficult times and places.”
For those who are worried about Fico’s entrenchment once in office—modeled perhaps after Viktor Orbán in Hungary—the absence of a well-organized countervailing force close to the country’s political center of gravity is bad news. Orbán (like Putin) has been effective at depicting his opponents not only as lackeys of foreign interests but also as out-of-touch ideologues blinded by “woke” globalist ideas that have no connection to Hungary’s traditions and way of life.
If PS—a party of start-up founders, gay rights and climate activists, and hip “organizers”—becomes the main opposition force in Slovakia, Fico’s job will be made easier. While PO hasn’t shied away from the green transition or gay rights, it has more of a history as a broad tent than PS, as well as a record of policy accomplishments that extends far beyond those causes. Whether PS can similarly broaden its appeal, not just in one election but over a longer term, remains to be seen.
None of this is an indictment of PS, which has itself successfully weathered changes in leadership and coped with initial political setbacks, including failing to reach the threshold for seats in parliament in 2020. Rather, it is an indictment of Slovakia’s broader center right, which has succumbed to the narcissism of small differences and pettiness instead of cohering around a single candidate list and a leader while there was time.
The two upcoming Central European elections, Slovakia’s and Poland’s, provide two different case studies of trends seen in democracies around the world. In some countries, the center right has successfully adapted to the challenge posed by the populist-nationalist insurgency. In other cases, the far right has itself transformed into a more responsible political force. In yet others—most notably in France, where Emmanuel Macron singlehandedly upended the existing party system—the traditional center right has essentially imploded and left voters with a choice between a technocratic-progressive center and different flavors of populism on the far left and the far right.
The last category is the most fraught with peril. Macron defeated Marine Le Pen twice, each time handily, but as long as the choice is between the bland techno-centrism of Macron and the fiery, dangerous nationalism of Le Pen, the boring option has to win every time. Thanks to PO, Poland has avoided that position, but Slovakia has not. For that reason, and not just because Ukraine will be on the ballot (though it will), I will be watching the Slovak election with much greater trepidation than the Polish one.
Source link : https://www.thebulwark.com/p/what-happened-central-europes-center-right
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Publish date : 2023-09-13 03:00:00
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