Hungarian voters have ousted long-serving Prime Minister Viktor Orbán after 16 years in power, rejecting the authoritarian policies and global far-right movement that he embodied in favor of a pro-European challenger in a bombshell election result with global repercussions.
In the back of my head, I’m slightly worried when a European country has a party that has more than 50% of the seats. We’re supposed to not be two-party systems.
But on every other part of my head, this feels great. Good stuff, hungarians! I wish I had free money to invest into Hungary. Seems like a safe bet right now.
As I understand it, Orban has rewritten the laws so the biggest party gets an unproportional amount of seats. Works well when you are able to keep the opposition fractured, but less well when your comeuppance finally arrives.
Other EU countries have a similar unfair system. They’re quite easy to spot because they usually have 2 parties that get 90%+ of the seats.
Once that system is in place, the incentives of the party in power are to keep it, because they’d lose a supermajority if they win the next election cycle.
I honestly don’t know how you could fix the system once it’s so entrenched. I think it can only change if people become aware of how their shitty political situation (only 2 viable parties) is entirely created by this electoral system, and somehow demand a change.
In the back of my head, I’m slightly worried when a European country has a party that has more than 50% of the seats. We’re supposed to not be two-party systems.
But on every other part of my head, this feels great. Good stuff, hungarians! I wish I had free money to invest into Hungary. Seems like a safe bet right now.
As I understand it, Orban has rewritten the laws so the biggest party gets an unproportional amount of seats. Works well when you are able to keep the opposition fractured, but less well when your comeuppance finally arrives.
Hopefully the new party will roll back those laws and make it more fair in future.
Other EU countries have a similar unfair system. They’re quite easy to spot because they usually have 2 parties that get 90%+ of the seats.
Once that system is in place, the incentives of the party in power are to keep it, because they’d lose a supermajority if they win the next election cycle.
I honestly don’t know how you could fix the system once it’s so entrenched. I think it can only change if people become aware of how their shitty political situation (only 2 viable parties) is entirely created by this electoral system, and somehow demand a change.