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*I thought you would be interested in the following in-house report by
NDI's Rob Benjamin following his recent visit to Central Europe to review
our ongoing work with Roma political activists, and to help lay the
groundwork for a new (and related) effort on combating extremism in the
Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. In this new program, NDI
will assist various minority groups -- ethnic, racial, and religious -- to
deepen their collaboration with each other, and to seek out partnerships
with mainstream groups, like political parties and churches, in order to
fashion mainstream responses to the kind of extremist politics described
below. We see this program as reflecting NDI's new strategic areas of
minority rights and inclusion in the region. *

*Needless to say, We would welcome your views.*

*Best regards,*

*Ken *

Kenneth Wollack
President
National Democratic Institute
455 Massachusetts Ave., NW, 8th Floor
Washington, DC 20001
202-728-5500 (Tel)
888-875-2887 (Fax)
email: ken@ndi.org
website: www.ndi.org


*Democracy in Central Europe: The Cases of Hungary and Poland*

*Summary*


A NDI staff trip to Central Europe in April 2016 to meet with political and
civic leaders, among them past and present NDI program partners,
underscored the following:

Ø The post-1989 consensus on democracy, human rights, and European
integration is fraying, despite largely successful political and economic
transitions over the past 25 years.

Ø Far-right political parties have won elected office on a formula of
political nativism, economic populism, historical revisionism, and
Euro-skepticism.

Ø In two countries--Hungary and Poland—these parties are in government,
and are undermining democratic rule through constitutional amendments and
other legal and policy changes that compromise judicial/media independence,
fair political competition, and civic participation.

Ø The success of extremist populism is due to domestic factors but relates
to economic, terrorism, and refugee challenges in wider Europe. Russia is
actively supporting but not driving political extremism in Central Europe.

Ø Mainstream political actors are fragmented, lack responses to
anti-democratic actions, and have trouble defending the success of the
transitions against revisionist critiques. Civic protest against
undemocratic actions is growing in Poland, but not in Hungary.

Ø The European Union has found little traction in addressing democracy
shortcomings in Hungary and Poland

Ø Most USG assistance ended nearly 20 years ago. NDI has since had NED and
State Department funds to support Roma political participation regionally.
NDI will shortly commence a four-country effort to support coalitions
across ethnic, racial, and sectarian minorities and to connect them with
mainstream groups to combat racism and xenophobia. Given broader democracy
concerns, NDI should consider how to support democracy activists in
mainstream politics to combat political extremism.


According to NDI interlocutors, Central Europe’s post-1989 consensus on
democracy, human rights, and European integration, long considered
unimpeachable, is under threat. Hungary and Poland in particular are
subject to an improbable backlash against their successful political and
economic transformations. Starting in Hungary with the 2010 election
victory of Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party, followed by Poland’s 2015
presidential and parliamentary elections that put the Law and Justice (PIS)
party in power, the rise of political extremism has been built using a
formula of political nativism, economic populism, historical revisionism,
and Euro-skepticism.


*Political nativism.* Extremists have pushed political agendas that lie
outside of the mainstream, but which are gaining traction within the
electorate—owing in part to sophisticated use of media. They are attacking
gender equality, minority inclusion, and secularism. Restrictive laws on
abortion and gender-based job discrimination are used to reverse falling
population numbers. Vigilantes, ostensibly upholding public safety, beat up
foreigners and minorities with impunity. The refugee/migration crisis,
affecting only Hungary and temporarily at that, has been used to foster
nationalism and xenophobia that label political opponents as traitors and
citizens not fully endowed with physical and linguistic traits seen to
embody the nation as outsiders. Patriotic, religious, or family-based
groups receive ample government funding. Groups representing
non-traditional communities and causes, ranging from Jewish communities to
environmental activism to citizens who are LGBT pointedly do not, and face
increased hostility.


*Economic populism.* The European financial crisis has stepped up attempts
to pursue economic interests divorced from European prerogatives, such as
maintaining if not deepening ties to Russian (and Azeri) energy resources.
Public procurement, fiscal, and social policies are fostering crony
capitalism. Three years of paid maternity leave (Hungary) and incentive pay
to poor households to bear more children (Poland) are building
state-dependent constituencies. Hundreds of impoverished Roma in Hungary
are effectively serving as indentured labor.


*Historical revisionism.* According to many propounding extremist views,
the Holocaust was the doing of the Nazis, with little if any domestic
collusion or responsibility. To say otherwise is to invite reproach, with
officials insisting that young people should not be made to feel bad about
their country. The 1989 revolutions were not mass protests against Soviet
domination but covert operations by unrepentant communists who privatized
their way to wealth and power. Lech Walesa’s legacy, in this narrative, is
revised from Solidarity hero to communist informant. The ensuing
development of market economies, open societies, and democratic politics
has been corrupt. So too EU integration, which reflects political
subjugation to Brussels and constitutes at times a breach of national
sovereignty.


*Euro-skepticism.* Fidesz and PiS join a growing tide of Euroskeptic
parties that question the EU’s political union, rail against Brussels’
oversight of domestic laws and policy-making, and demand a more confederal
power structure. Hungary and Poland, until now, had been among the
strongest proponents of the EU. Donald Tusk, former Prime Minister and
leader of Civic Platform, Poland’s largest mainstream party, serves as EU
president.


The political agendas of Fidesz and PiS, while repugnant to many, do not
necessarily call into question Hungary and Poland’s legitimacy as
democratic states. Fundamental rights to free expression, assembly, and
association are not threatened. There is political discourse and exchange
of opposing views.

However, Fidesz and now PiS have used their time in government to
short-circuit democratic practice through unilateral changes to the
constitution and broader legal framework that compromise judicial and media
independence, tilt political competition in their favor, and restrict civic
space, all in a presumed effort to perpetuate their power.


*Hungary’s Frozen Democracy*


Mr. Orban has been quite clear in his intentions. In a 2014 speech, he
declared his distaste for liberal democracy, citing its failure, as he
claims, to protect against the financial crisis and its promotion of
‘asymmetric freedom’ in which the strong prevail over the weak. In its
place, Orban called for a 'work-state' in which people's personal interests
are defined by the nation, and asserted that the state – at least under his
watch – is a better guarantor of moral leadership than liberal democracy.


Opposition politicians and activists liken Fidesz rule to communism:
decisions meant for institutions like parliament simply happen elsewhere,
and usually overnight. Fidesz made the most of its constitutional majority
after a landslide victory in 2010 against a discredited center-left to
rewrite the constitution unilaterally.


In fact, Hungary no longer has its post-1989 constitution. It now has the
Fundamental Law, which Fidesz ushered in through cardinal laws, many of
which were introduced as private member bills with highly specific legal
content. These procedures allowed Fidesz to circumvent public debate. Legal
minutiae serving Fidesz political interests are now constitutionally
protected. The Fundamental Law removed 20 years of constitutional
jurisprudence, much of it tied to EU law, and diminished the Constitutional
Court’s authority over what it can review and challenge as infringements of
human rights or separation of powers. The judiciary was cleaned out as
Fidesz imposed mandatory termination of judges 62 years of age and older
and packed the courts.


Fidesz effectively nationalized the media space in banning political
advertising in public media, and compelling the public broadcaster to use
feeds only from the state news agency. Fidesz introduced imprisonment for
undefined “provocative social behavior”, which sent a chilling effect to
minority groups, including LGBT persons. When it came time for elections in
2014, Fidesz gerrymandered election districts, bought all the advertising,
and dominated the airwaves against a fractured opposition. After the
elections, it went after Norwegian-funded civic groups engaged in
investigative journalism. The Supreme Court, in a flicker of judicial
independence, rejected the government’s espionage case against the NGOs.


Fidesz’s main political challenger, Jobbik, comes from the
further-far-right, allowing Fidesz to look reasonable by comparison. Jobbik
is a neo-Nazi movement that has recreated the notorious Hungarian Guard of
armed vigilantes, committed pogroms against Roma, and tried to force Roma
children from their homes and into state institutions. Jobbik has grown
from a fringe group to occupy a wide swath of the electorate, across age
ranges, socioeconomic status, and geography.


Fidesz has appropriated much of Jobbik’s agenda:

Ø The government erected a controversial monument to World War Two that
bypasses Hungarian complicity in Nazi atrocities.

Ø It has used teargas at the border with Serbia against refugee women and
children while claiming that they are terrorists.

Ø Orban has rejected any refugee placements in Hungary in noting that the
country already has Roma to deal with. A Fidesz official in charge of Roma
issues stated that Roma are susceptible to jihadism. Roma receiving social
assistance are coerced into chain-gangs on road construction and similar
public jobs for pittance wages, typically in ‘majority’ areas where
infrastructure is far better than in their blighted communities.

Ø Orban recently announced that Islam, as such, is banned under the
Fundamental Law because it does not accord, in his estimation, with
Hungarian values and traditions.

Ø Women have taken a back-seat in public life. Parliament and government
have among the lowest percentage of women officials in Europe. Labor
discrimination, together with three-year paid maternity leave, are
jettisoning thousands of child-bearing women out of the work force.

The government has politically miscalculated on occasion. It proposed and
then retracted an internet tax that put thousands of people on the street
in protest. It proposed banning retail commerce on Sundays in what was
ostensibly offered as a measure to induce church attendance, but in reality
was legally structured to keep small retailers, many tied to Fidesz, open
by virtue of their size. The proposal met with derision. Citizens are not
motivated to protest over democracy and human rights transgressions, but
will go to the streets when they feel personally affected.


Opposition parties have means to build support, especially at local level,
but are too fractured and marginalized nationally to contend for power. The
leading opposition Hungarian Socialist Party (MSzP) had a poor track record
in its previous turn in government and, since Fidesz’s take-over, has
struggled to find its footing to re-engage. Fidesz’s hostile takeover of
the political system means that MSzP and other, far smaller political
options need to coalesce to engage the electorate in a ground game. Civil
society is well-organized but, because people will not protest over
democracy and human rights, civic groups must link those issues to
interests that are social and economic in nature.


*Poland’s Democracy on Thinning Ice*


Poland’s democratic and economic transition is the quintessential success
story. Governing institutions took shape under a constitutional system of
checks and balances. Poland’s 38 million citizens lifted themselves out of
communist-era poverty using EU funding to create a wholly new private
sector along with physical and online infrastructure. Poland benefited from
strong organizing burnished in the Solidarity underground to create robust
civil society, and situated the all-powerful Catholic Church as a
conservative force in a system of political pluralism. Political consensus
between left and right on EU and NATO membership was easily established
and, with able assists from Germany, the U.S. and others, Poland made quick
work of the reform needed to join both blocs. Polish democracy has not been
without its problems, and its economic transformation has produced
inequality, but there is no question that Poland is far better off.


But that is not the PiS narrative. In its telling, Poland’s 1989 revolution
was a *coup d’etat* by communists who managed to remake themselves as
liberal and center-left leaders. Never mind the millions of Poles who took
to the streets and voted wholesale for the Solidarity government in 1990.
EU membership in 2004 was a neo-colonialist effort led by Germany to
subjugate the Polish nation to foreign control. The transition did not lift
Poland out of poverty so much as divide it into winners and losers, and PiS
speaks for the losers: the economic losers without education and skills to
compete in a service-oriented, globalized economy; those unable or
unwilling to sign on to an open, multi-cultural society; and political
orphans without representation by mainstream parties catering to an urban,
increasingly secular middle class.


In the 2015 presidential and parliamentary elections, PiS ran a smart,
tech-savvy campaign. It proposed a telegenic candidate for President, who
bested the respected but flat-footed incumbent, particularly among young
voters with no visceral connection to the past. The same thing happened in
the parliamentary campaign, where PiS leader Jaroslaw Kacynski stepped back
to allow Beata Sydlo, a relative newcomer, assume the party reins and
become prime minister when PiS won an outright majority.


Kaczynski’s backstory reads like a psychological thriller. In similar
fashion to Orban, Kaczynski and his identical twin brother, Lech, had a
turn in government 10 years ago, as prime minister and prime minister
respectively. Their tenure was marked with controversy but did not imperil
constitutional democracy as is the case now. Lech Kacynski and nearly 60
other officials perished in 2010 when their plane crashed in fog on
approach to Smolensk (Russia), to commemorate the anniversary of the 1941
massacre of thousands of Polish soldiers by Soviet forces in the Katyn
forest. Jaroslaw has ventured that the crash was a planned conspiracy
between Russian intelligence and Polish opponents. Conflating personal
tragedy with political treason, Kaczynski views the Smolensk crash as a
betrayal of the nation.


Among his first foreign meetings upon winning the elections was a sit-down
with Viktor Orban. And with apparent reason. The government set in on the
constitution, judiciary, media, and civil society with alacrity. The
Constitutional Court was first up. The president, Andrzej Duda, refused to
swear in five justices appointed to the Court by the prior government. The
PiS-controlled parliament voted in five new justices, all duly sworn in by
the president. The government passed laws amending Court procedure and
jurisdiction without forewarning. The Court is to convene a 13-member panel
for each case, rather than five members; achieve a two-thirds majority in
rendering decisions rather than a simple majority; and take cases in the
order registered, rather than by priority.


The effect of the law is to paralyze the Court. The Court’s chief justice
refused to acknowledge the five new justices and put the new PiS law before
the Court itself to rule on its constitutionality. The government insists
the Court’s current composition is illegal, and thus it has no standing to
rule on cases. It has refused to publish Court decisions altogether. There
is debate as to whether a Court decision, to be valid, must be published in
the Official Gazette. Some judges are recognizing Court decisions; others
are not. The stand-off is politicizing the judiciary. The Council of
Europe’s reputable Venice Commission criticized PiS moves as upending
judicial independence, earning public rebukes from PiS leaders that its
criticism is politically motivated.


PiS also made abrupt changes to state media, moving the appointment of the
heads of state television and radio, by far the largest source of media, to
the Ministry of Finance from parliament. The Minister of Culture was quoted
as saying that his government seeks to imbue media with a “national
mission” of promoting Polish patriotism. Independent journalists have been
fired or quit. Changes in public media appointments are not new, but a
semi-autonomous regulatory body, now vanquished, prevented partisan
manipulation from cutting too deep into journalistic integrity.


Poland’s respected Ombudsperson, Adam Bodnar, who with his team petitions
the Constitutional Court to redress human rights shortcomings, is feeling
the pressure. The government has stepped up criticism of the office and
threatened his dismissal. A three-fifths vote in parliament is needed,
which PiS does not have, although political rumor has it trying to pick off
legislators from a struggling new opposition party. If this fails, PiS can
cut the Ombudsman’s budget.


Civil society is also attracting government attention. A new surveillance
law and proposed anti-terrorism legislation are viewed as putting privacy
rights at risk—rights that the Ombudsman and the Constitutional Court are
meant to protect. The government has gotten rid of the Council for the
Prevention of Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance,
and has instituted a Plenipotentiary for Civil Society and Equal Treatment,
who wasted little time in cutting off funds for multicultural and minority
groups to favor pro-family organizations and the Catholic Church.


Socioeconomic policies are also turning a nationalist tide. Recent land
reform reputedly does away with free market principles in favor of agrarian
boards to set prices, raises residency requirements for purchasers, and
positions the Catholic Church as the go-to buyer. The government’s
signature economic measure—an income redistribution scheme to poor
families—is lauded as progressive but, in increasing cash payments for each
child born per household, incentivizes families of modest means to become
dependent on the state and the Church.


Unlike Hungary, an impressive civic movement—the Committee for the Defense
of Democracy (KOD)—has emerged to challenge the government. KOD has put
hundreds of thousands of citizens on the streets in recurring
demonstrations against PiS. The latest manifestation, in early May, was the
largest gathering yet, estimated at 200,000, in central Warsaw.
Grassroots-driven, KOD is the spiritual heir of the Solidarity movement.
KOD outpolls PiS. For the time being, KOD plans to stay a civic movement.
Poland’s next scheduled elections are in 2018. Gerrymandering and other
unilateral moves to alter the election system to its favor could be in the
PiS playbook.


PiS’ ruling majority gives it the upper hand, but KOD is on its tails, and
other challenges are in the offing. Not all in the ruling party are said to
support Kaczynski’s program. Pope Francis’ summer visit to Krakow for World
Youth Day could embolden liberal Catholic voices. And July’s NATO Summit in
Warsaw may spotlight Poland’s democracy slide. But if PiS can get through
the NATO Summit and papal visit unscathed, it could be strengthened. The
chief justice of the Constitutional Court, now the institutional standard
bearer against PiS, sees his term end in December.


*International actors *


*Europe*. The European Union has been a largely hapless bystander as
political events in Hungary and Poland unfold. The European parliament
passed several resolutions critical of Orban’s actions and the Commission
undertook legal proceedings, but took no political action against Orban.
Chastened by Hungary, the EU enacted a three-phase warning system that it
is now using on Poland. Following approval by the European parliament, EU
authorities are formally monitoring Poland’s rule of law situation to see
shortcomings redressed, which could ultimately lead to funding sanctions if
improvement is lacking. This ‘name and shame’ strategy is essentially a
bureaucratic response to a political problem. Orban can count on sister
parties in the center-right European People’s Party (EPP), Europe’s
largest, to hedge on his behalf. PiS is playing off of general displeasure
at Berlin’s power within the EU. Both Orban and Kaczynski are riding the
current Euroskeptic wave that crests in June’s Brexit referendum.


*Russia.* Researchers have uncovered a wealth of Kremlin support to
extremist political forces and trolls to skew political discourse. Russia
is also seeking to pull Central Europe more into its economic orbit through
energy policy. The Kremlin is not driving Central Europe’s democratic
downturn so much as leveraging it. Combating Kremlin propaganda is
important. But “geo-politicizing” democracy and human rights can backfire.
Focus should be paid on domestic factors in each country and not on overly
reductionist theories of a Soviet-style master plan over Central Europe.


*The U.S. * Washington understandably wants to project NATO strength
against a resurgent Russia. This means prioritizing security in its
relations with Hungary and Poland. After skirmishing with Orban for the
past few years, the State Department has been less vocal about developments
in Poland, hoping that PiS will ‘walk it back’ of its own accord. Kaczynski
is more concerned about his relations with Washington, and by extension
London, than he is with Brussels and Berlin. The U.S. has room to be vocal
on democracy and human rights issues, as it pursues security prerogatives.


*NDI*

In the 1990s, NDI assisted mainstream political parties in Hungary and
Poland. Both countries, along with the Czech Republic and Slovakia, were
‘graduated’ from USG assistance nearly 20 years ago. NDI has secured NED
and State Department (DRL) funding to support Roma political participation
in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia, through which it has
maintained offices in Bratislava and Budapest. NDI will commence a State
Department (DRL) grant in 2016 to engage Czech, Hungarian, Polish, and
Slovak civic groups representing religious, racial, and ethnic minorities
in jointly combating xenophobia and racism, and building alliances with
mainstream groups, such as KOD, political parties, and churches. This
program enables NDI to sustain its Hungary office and to open a Poland
office.


NDI will look for opportunities to engage mainstream political and civic
leaders in Hungary and Poland, though at present funding for dedicated
activity is not evident. Now 25 years on, political parties and civic
organizations do not need conventional support. The Institute would need to
assess conditions to tailor specific assistance that could range from
convening political and civic actors on how to combat political extremism,
to more technical kinds of support, for example in the field of information
technology. Along these lines, NDI has reached out to Poland’s KOD to see
if it can make use of NDI’s DemTools.


Central Europe’s democracy travails are both homegrown and reflect broader
trends in a Europe that cannot find mainstream answers to extremist
challenges. The refugee/migration crisis, ailing economies, terrorism, and
uncertainty over the European project have created a perfect storm for
populism and nativism. As and when these issues abate, extremism might
dissipate along with them. After such rapid integration over the past six
decades, this phenomenon might come to be viewed as a pause, or aberration,
before resuming integration around a vision of a Europe whole and free. For
Central Europe, the present risks to democracy associated with these
developments are real. The question is whether they are to be ephemeral or
perpetuated