Hungary ‘no longer a democracy,’ rights watchdog says

BUDAPEST, Hungary — Hungary can no longer be called a democracy after unprecedented democratic backsliding, a human rights watchdog says, bemoaning the “precipitous” fall down the rankings of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s “regime.”

The US-based Freedom House declares in its annual “Nations in Transit” report that Hungary is instead a “hybrid regime…in a ‘grey zone’ between democracies and pure autocracies.”

The watchdog says the EU member had been a “democratic frontrunner” in 2005, and that “its decline has been the most precipitous ever tracked” by the group.

In 2020 Hungary became the first country to fall by two of the group’s ranking categories and “leave the group of democracies entirely,” says Freedom House.

“Hungary today can no longer be regarded as a democracy,” it says.

Orban’s government has “dropped any pretense of respecting democratic institutions,” says the human rights group.

“After centralizing power, tilting the electoral playing field, taking over much of the media, and harassing critical civil society organizations since 2010, Orban moved during 2019 to consolidate control over new areas of public life, including education and the arts,” it says.

The adoption in March of a COVID-19 emergency law that lets the government rule by decree indefinitely “has further exposed the undemocratic character of Orban’s regime.”

— AFP