Hopeless situation of the Left unaltered

Two left-wing political scientists agree that the Left is still preoccupied with its internal struggles for leadership, which makes it unlikely to become a serious challenger to Fidesz in the near future.

In 168 Óra, Zoltán Lakner writes that little has changed on the Left in the past eight years. He and other commentators, the left-wing analyst recalls, used to hope that the landslide victory of Fidesz would compel the Left to find politicians as well as a credible strategy to challenge the governing party. Instead, left-wing politicians are still preoccupied with their own leadership battles, Lakner complains. He finds it pathetic that the Left keeps debating the very same proposals and strategies that it had eight years ago, while many of their politicians appear not to care about politics beyond securing themselves a safe seat in Parliament. Lakner predicts that in the 2019 local election campaign, the Left will still be busy waging their own internal fights, which will make their victory unlikely.

On Mérce, Zoltán Gábor Szűcs explains the failure of the Left to challenge Fidesz in terms of structural obstacles. The left-wing political scientist thinks that the ‘competitive authoritarian regime’ introduced by Fidesz distorts the political playing field. The opposition parties, he continues, are simply not able to mobilize enough support to defeat Fidesz. The Left lacks the network, the media and the organization to reach out to enough people, Szűcs finds. He adds that even if it could address enough voters, the Left is unlikely to send a message that would convince an ideologically highly diverse potential voting base.

Tags: Left, opposition