{"id":46677,"date":"2019-04-03T12:48:31","date_gmt":"2019-04-03T01:48:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=46677"},"modified":"2019-04-03T13:09:58","modified_gmt":"2019-04-03T02:09:58","slug":"how-to-beat-a-populist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/how-to-beat-a-populist\/","title":{"rendered":"How to beat a populist"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

There have never been more populist governments in place than today. Until now, populists haven\u2019t been voted out of power in any Western country. Even though the president of Slovakia has only symbolic power, anti-corruption campaigner Zuzana \u010caputov\u00e1\u2019s landslide victory over a populist candidate last weekend could signal a change in populists\u2019 ability to make the political weather in Europe. At the same time, the apparent victory of TV comedian and political novice Volodymyr Zelensky in the first round of Ukraine\u2019s presidential election suggests that the populist wave may not have crested yet.<\/p>\n

Populists are capable of being defeated, but only under one condition: a unified opposition. Unfortunately, political divisions most often persist among opposition parties\u2014to the benefit of populist forces. That was the case in Poland as long as the country was unable to buck that trend, and it remains the case in every EU country governed by populists: Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Italy.<\/p>\n

In Hungary, for example, the post-communist Socialists and the post-fascist Jobbik party have long shown more contempt for each other than for Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n. When they finally started cooperating after years of devastating defeats, it was too little, too late. The country\u2019s independent media have since been silenced, and Orb\u00e1n\u2019s power over the state confers such a significant advantage to his own party, Fidesz, that the country\u2019s elections are no longer deemed fair<\/a> by independent observers.<\/p>\n

Still, it\u2019s worth remembering that on 25 February 2018, an independent candidate with broad support from all of the opposition parties won the mayoralty<\/a> of H\u00f3dmez\u0151v\u00e1s\u00e1rhely, a Fidesz stronghold. Had the opposition parties not descended into infighting during the run-up to parliamentary elections last April, Fidesz may not have captured nearly 50% of the vote, and Orb\u00e1n might not have been given the means to consolidate power.<\/p>\n

In Italy, there are actually left\u2013right divides within both the ruling coalition and the opposition. To form a government last year, the populist Five Star Movement (M5S) had to come to terms with the nationalist League party. Together, they won some 50% of the vote<\/a>, compared with nearly 20% for the mainstream Democratic Party and less than 15% for former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi\u2019s center-right Forza Italia.<\/p>\n

Hence, as matters stand, Italy\u2019s populists have no one to lose to. But while M5S captured the largest share of the vote in the election last March, the League has since surpassed<\/a> it in polls and regional elections. This is in keeping with a broader trend: while right-wing populists have remained in favour once in power, their left-wing counterparts have stumbled.<\/p>\n

As for Slovakia, the left-wing populist party Smer-SD and its leader, former prime minister Robert Fico, have finally been defeated after almost two decades in power. But with over 20% support, Smer-SD remains the country\u2019s single strongest party. Meanwhile, there are at least 10 opposition parties with a shot at entering parliament in the next election, including \u010caputov\u00e1\u2019s own Progressive Slovakia, a relatively new party that currently enjoys just 3% support.<\/p>\n

Leading a political party in Slovakia is no great feat in itself. The conservative We Are Family party, led by a man who has fathered nine children with eight women, won 6.6% of the vote in the last parliamentary election<\/a>. Moreover, around 25% of the electorate consistently supports the extreme right, which itself is divided between Marian Kotleba (\u2018Our Slovakia\u2019) and the movement around the far-right jurist \u0160tefan Harabin.<\/p>\n

Still, \u010caputov\u00e1\u2019s victory has lent momentum to opponents of populism elsewhere, not least in the Czech Republic, where her campaign was supported by Tom\u00e1\u0161 Hal\u00edk, a prominent Catholic priest and philosopher, and Karel Schwarzenberg<\/a>, a former Czech minister of foreign affairs. In the October 2017 general election, Czech voters apparently decided that their happy and peaceful country could afford a little madness, so they handed a plurality of votes to Andrej Babi\u0161, a scandal-plagued billionaire of Slovak origin whom many have described as a \u2018Czech Trump\u2019.<\/p>\n

The Czech presidency is currently occupied by Milo\u0161 Zeman, a Social Democrat turned nationalist with a soft spot for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Zeman and Babi\u0161 both act as though they\u2019re competing for the title of Europe\u2019s most embarrassing politician. Zeman, for example, once held a ceremonial burning of a giant pair of red underwear<\/a> that had previously been used by the artist collective Ztohoven to mock him. Babi\u0161 allegedly had his own son kidnapped<\/a> and sought to commit him to a psychiatric hospital in Russian-occupied Crimea to prevent him from testifying about his father\u2019s corrupt business dealings.<\/p>\n

So, if Polish politics is currently mimicking the cinema of moral anxiety of the 1970s, our southern neighbours are in the midst of an absurdist comedy. For now, however, the fractured opposition\u2014comprising the center-right Civic Democratic Party, the techno-liberal Pirate Party, the far-right anti-immigrant Freedom Party (led by the half-Japanese businessman Tomio Okamura) and the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia\u2014has failed to carry through votes of no confidence in the prime minister.<\/p>\n

Finally, in Poland, opposition parties have united<\/a> against the populist Law and Justice (PiS) party government. This is a notable achievement, given that the Polish opposition is divided between Civic Platform, the agrarian Polish People\u2019s Party and the post-communist Democratic Left Alliance, the neoliberal Modern party, the leftist Polish Initiative and the Greens. According to the latest polls<\/a>, this so-called European Coalition has around 38\u201342% support, which means it could beat PiS in the parliamentary election in October.<\/p>\n

Much will depend on what happens in next month\u2019s European Parliament elections. But uniting has proved to be easier for Poles than for anyone else in Europe. That means Poland could become the first EU country to overthrow a populist government\u2014on the 30th anniversary of the fall of communism, no less. It would be only fitting for Poles to trigger a wave of democratic renewal across Eastern Europe, just as they did in 1989.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There have never been more populist governments in place than today. Until now, populists haven\u2019t been voted out of power in any Western country. Even though the president of Slovakia has only symbolic power, anti-corruption …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":646,"featured_media":46679,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2465,1025,2197,955,1734],"class_list":["post-46677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-czech-republic","tag-european-union","tag-hungary","tag-poland","tag-populism"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow to beat a populist | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/how-to-beat-a-populist\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to beat a populist | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There have never been more populist governments in place than today. Until now, populists haven\u2019t been voted out of power in any Western country. Even though the president of Slovakia has only symbolic power, anti-corruption ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/how-to-beat-a-populist\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ASPI.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-04-03T01:48:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-04-03T02:09:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/55782428_1081829348691715_1554460501075820544_n.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"960\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Slawomir Sierakowski\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Slawomir Sierakowski\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/\",\"name\":\"The Strategist\",\"description\":\"ASPI's analysis and commentary site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/how-to-beat-a-populist\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/55782428_1081829348691715_1554460501075820544_n.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/55782428_1081829348691715_1554460501075820544_n.jpg\",\"width\":960,\"height\":640},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/how-to-beat-a-populist\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/how-to-beat-a-populist\/\",\"name\":\"How to beat a populist | The Strategist\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/how-to-beat-a-populist\/#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-04-03T01:48:31+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-04-03T02:09:58+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#\/schema\/person\/87f14504404eaf494637e00cc84fa855\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/how-to-beat-a-populist\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/how-to-beat-a-populist\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/how-to-beat-a-populist\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"How to beat a populist\"}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#\/schema\/person\/87f14504404eaf494637e00cc84fa855\",\"name\":\"Slawomir Sierakowski\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6b0e3003007c3fd78a2a2e6fbcda9cc7?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6b0e3003007c3fd78a2a2e6fbcda9cc7?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Slawomir Sierakowski\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/author\/slawomir-sierakowski\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"How to beat a populist | The Strategist","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/how-to-beat-a-populist\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"How to beat a populist | The Strategist","og_description":"There have never been more populist governments in place than today. Until now, populists haven\u2019t been voted out of power in any Western country. Even though the president of Slovakia has only symbolic power, anti-corruption ...","og_url":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/how-to-beat-a-populist\/","og_site_name":"The Strategist","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ASPI.org","article_published_time":"2019-04-03T01:48:31+00:00","article_modified_time":"2019-04-03T02:09:58+00:00","og_image":[{"width":960,"height":640,"url":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/55782428_1081829348691715_1554460501075820544_n.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Slawomir Sierakowski","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@ASPI_org","twitter_site":"@ASPI_org","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Slawomir Sierakowski","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/","name":"The Strategist","description":"ASPI's analysis and commentary site","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-AU"},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-AU","@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/how-to-beat-a-populist\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/55782428_1081829348691715_1554460501075820544_n.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/55782428_1081829348691715_1554460501075820544_n.jpg","width":960,"height":640},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/how-to-beat-a-populist\/","url":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/how-to-beat-a-populist\/","name":"How to beat a populist | The Strategist","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/how-to-beat-a-populist\/#primaryimage"},"datePublished":"2019-04-03T01:48:31+00:00","dateModified":"2019-04-03T02:09:58+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#\/schema\/person\/87f14504404eaf494637e00cc84fa855"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/how-to-beat-a-populist\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-AU","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/how-to-beat-a-populist\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/how-to-beat-a-populist\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"How to beat a populist"}]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#\/schema\/person\/87f14504404eaf494637e00cc84fa855","name":"Slawomir Sierakowski","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-AU","@id":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6b0e3003007c3fd78a2a2e6fbcda9cc7?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6b0e3003007c3fd78a2a2e6fbcda9cc7?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Slawomir Sierakowski"},"url":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/author\/slawomir-sierakowski\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46677"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/646"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46677"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46680,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46677\/revisions\/46680"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}