Peter Morvay on populism in Central Europe

Within a year, Poles, Hungarians, Czechs and Slovakians have all elected new parliaments and are drifting apart politically, notes Peter Morvay. "Slovakia has chosen a different path to its immediate neighbours, the Czech Republic and Hungary. Voters in Prague and Budapest have turned their backs on populism and extremism, whereas in Slovakia and Warsaw populists who for the sake of power are willing to make a pact with the devil – or in other words with extreme nationalist parties – have won. It has to be said that in the case of Slovakia the populism of the victorious social democratic Smer party is even more extreme than that of its close friends, Viktor Orban and Jiri Paroubek. At least the latter have democratic roots. Smer, on the other hand, was a purely populist party right from the start."

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