(Bloomberg) — Strongmen can struggle to maintain a hold over their nations’ major cities. Recep Tayyip Erdogan couldn’t stop an opposition candidate becoming Istanbul’s mayor. Protesters are giving Vladimir Putin a hard time in Moscow.
A similar battle could be playing out in Hungary. While Prime Minister Viktor Orban reigns supreme after bringing the media under his control and rewriting electoral rules, rivals sense an opportunity in local votes next month and are uniting behind single candidates.
Budapest, the eastern European country’s liberal-leaning capital, is a case in point. Opposition hopeful Gergely Karacsony, a youthful local politician who’s savvy with social media and strummed a guitar at his campaign launch, is closing in polls on government-backed incumbent Istvan Tarlos, 71.
Orban’s self-styled illiberal democracy — under which he wields outsized control and has sparked rule-of-law probes by the European Union — is at risk of an upset.
“The opposition only has a chance against Orban if local communities break this monolithic bloc that Hungary has become under him,” 44-year-old Karacsony said in an interview. “If that happens, this will be the single biggest challenge to the stability of the Orban regime.”
It’s a tall order. The ruling party controls all but three of two dozen major urban areas and the opposition has lost seven elections in a row in the past decade. Standing as a prime ministerial candidate last year, Karacsony himself was crushed.
Orban, meanwhile, is the EU’s longest-serving premier behind Germany’s Angela Merkel, enjoying his third straight constitutional majority before he next faces parliamentary elections in 2022.
Karacsony, who previously taught political science, describes Orban’s administration as a “hybrid” — part democracy and part dictatorship.
Instead, he’s adopted a sustainability and anti-corruption platform, advocating a “left-wing populism” that would unite communities rather than pitting them against perceived enemies such as immigrants, like Orban has. Tarlos says his rival is attempting to “destabilize” Budapest.
Karacsony has turned to Turkey for inspiration, visiting Istanbul to meet its new mayor and his campaign strategist.
“The political machinery in Hungary and Turkey are incredibly similar,” he said. “Istanbul shows that in the battle between David and Goliath, David can win.”
Budapest residents don’t seem to share Karacsony’s optimism. After so many defeats, opposition supporters are disheartened before the Oct. 13 election. In a recent voter poll, more than two-thirds predicted Tarlos would win, regardless of how they cast their ballots.
–With assistance from Cagan Koc.
To contact the reporter on this story: Zoltan Simon in Budapest at [email protected]
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Balazs Penz at [email protected], Andrew Langley, Andrea Dudik
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