When East Meets West

In recent national elections in the Czech Republic, the Social Democrats handily defeated the Civic Democratic Party led by former Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus, a devotee of Margaret Thatcher. In April, the Hungarian Socialist Party together with the liberal Free Democrats squeaked past then Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s conservative coalition to win the country’s parliamentary elections. And in Poland last September, a left-wing coalition ousted the hapless Solidarity-led government from power. Are Central Europeans slowing the center-right’s momentum across Europe?

Not exactly. In fact, the Central European left has often been more successful in implementing “right-wing” policies — like privatization and other market-focused reforms — than the right itself. In Hungary, for example, it was the Socialists who in the mid-1990s began privatizing the banking and utility sectors, reforming the pension system and introducing unpopular budget cuts. Voters tossed out the Socialists in 1998 — austerity rarely wins elections — but the reforms are in large part responsible for the country’s low inflation, enviable 6% unemployment rate and an economy that last year grew by an impressive 3.8%. In contrast, the “Orban government was basically not doing anything in terms of structural, institutional or tax reform,” says Laszlo Csaba, professor of economics and European studies at the Central European University in Budapest. Ironically, the success of these painful reforms gives the new Socialist Prime Minister Peter Medgyessy a freer hand to introduce more traditional center-left policies, like his promised one-time payment to pensioners and 50% pay rise for teachers and other public servants.

Central Europe is also bucking the right-wing populist trend that has gripped many E.U. countries. In the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus’ campaign blended calls for a smaller state and lower taxes with blatant Euro-skepticism, anti-immigration rhetoric and an unsavory form of nationalism. Many voters thought Klaus went too far, preferring the Social Democrats’ more moderate, E.U.-friendly approach. “Right-wing parties in Western Europe are winning because people got a little scared of the pace of integration,” says Jiri Pehe, a political analyst and former adviser to Czech President Vaclav Havel. “In Central Europe, people are voting Socialist because they feel these parties are more competent to lead them into the European Union.”

Another factor in the right’s Central European slump is what Polish political analyst Jadwiga Staniszkis calls the “incomplete transition to capitalism.” Staniszkis argues that Poland has yet to create a large enough middle class for the right to establish a political base. As a result, voters opt for left-wing alternatives that try to marry the market with the welfare state — remember the Third Way? — or for firebrand populists like Andrzej Lepper, a fierce opponent of E.U. entry. But even as Poland’s demographics change, the old-fashioned right may never really prosper. “Those who identify with the right are more strongly attached to values such as patriotism, nationalism and Catholicism,” Staniszkis says. “But these values are vanishing, especially among the younger generation.” Ultimately, these political shifts may be yet another sign of Central Europe’s return to normality: that in the East as well as the West, the line between left and right is increasingly hard to find.