Gábor Török on the turmoil in the Hungarian party system

The Hungarian party system was long considered to be especially stable after the fall of communism but is now in a state of turmoil, political scientist Gábor Török explains in his blog Törökgáborelemez: "Four, eight or ten years ago it would have been no great feat to predict that in the next elections the two top places would go to the current ruling party Fidesz and the Socialists (MSZP). Nowadays it is an art. ... While during the 1990s almost everywhere else in Central Eastern Europe new formations emerged and took power, here in Hungary two parties reigned supreme for almost a decade and a half. Although a large part of the voters always talked of being disappointed and disillusioned, from election to election Fidesz and the MSZP gained an increasingly large proportion of the active electorate between them (1998: 62, 2002: 83, 2006: 85 percent). The 2010 elections clearly broke with this trend, with the MSZO suffering a crushing defeat and plunging into a crisis, and on top of that two new parties winning seats in parliament, the far-right party Jobbik and the green party LMP. ... The recent founding of two new parties in the left-liberal camp shows once more that Hungary's party system is changing radically."

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