2024-04-18 05:39:35
Hungary, Italy, France, Greece and Poland have the highest support for such leaders and parties, according to a ranking by two think tanks
Less than 20% of Bulgarians tend to support authoritarian populist parties from the right or left political spectrum against the 26.9% average for the European Union. And while populist formations have the highest support in Hungary, Italy, France, Greece and Poland, liberal parties are strongest precisely in Bulgaria, Slovenia and Estonia. These are just some of the data of the Index of Authoritarian Populism, published by the think tanks TIMBRO and EPICENTER in partnership with the Institute for Market Economy.
Nevertheless, the total share of votes for authoritarian and populist parties in Bulgaria has seen a significant growth over the last decade. In the middle of the last decade, this share reached almost 1/5 of all votes in elections for the National Assembly, and in recent years the rise of “Vazrazhdane” brought a further growth, and thus the share of populism in the country reached 17% in 2023.
Support for authoritarian and populist parties and formations has not increased since 2019. That is, although consolidating,
support for populists shows no sign of further expansion,
data from the report indicate.
Fears of migration play a major role in the growth of support for right-wing authoritarianism. Thus, Hungary, Italy, France, Greece and Poland have the highest support for populist parties and are at high risk of adopting populist policies.
At the other extreme are Malta, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Luxembourg and Croatia with the lowest support for populist parties. The report’s findings show that, although Eurosceptic in principle, today fewer of them advocate a full withdrawal from the EU.
At the top of the ranking is Hungary, governed by the national conservative party “Fidesz” of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. According to the report, Hungary has become the epitome of illiberal democracy through Orbán’s efforts to centralize power, weaken constitutional checks and separation of powers and limit media freedom.
Similar attempts to centralize power and limit freedom of expression were also characteristic of Poland’s recently-lost right-wing populist government.
The new normal in Europe is for an authoritarian populist party to be in the top three in terms of electoral support in almost every country. The popularity of these parties also often leads to political power grabs, with most European democracies having had populist parties in government at one point or another. states Andreas Johansson Heino, author of the report.
According to him, populism today is more left-wing than it was 20 years ago, especially in terms of economic policy.
This is evident both in their more protectionist positions on trade policy and in their staunch defense of a large and generous welfare stateadds Haino.