The election in Hungary, which takes place next Sunday (12), has drawn attention outside Europe not only because of the electoral risk faced by Viktor Orbán, but also because of the type of political model he built and which has come to be cited as a reference in other countries, including Brazil.
For Real Time Big Data political analyst Bruno Soller, the interest of sectors of the Brazilian right in the Hungarian case is not casual.
“Orbán becomes a reference because he shows that it is possible to concentrate power without formally breaking with democracy. You continue to have elections, you continue to have institutions, but with a redesign that favors those in government”, he stated during participation in Mapa de Risco Internacional, a political program from the InfoMoney.
According to him, this point is central to understanding why the model attracts attention outside Hungary.
“It’s not an explicit break. It’s a more gradual process, in which you change rules, occupy institutional spaces and change the balance of the system”, he said.
This type of strategy, in the analyst’s assessment, helps explain parallels made with Brazil in recent years.
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“When you look at the discourse of some sectors of Bolsonarism, there is admiration for this ability to reorganize the system from within, without necessarily breaking with formal democratic logic,” he stated.
Soller emphasizes that this does not mean direct replication, but points to a more conceptual inspiration. “It’s not copying and pasting. They are different contexts, different institutions. But there is a reference, mainly in the idea of strengthening the Executive and putting pressure on other powers”, he said.
This connection also appears in the way Orbán positions himself on the international stage.
“Orbán builds a very strong narrative of national sovereignty, of confronting international organizations, and this dialogues with speeches that we have already seen in other countries, including Brazil”, he stated.
At the same time, the analyst draws attention to the fact that the Hungarian case cannot be analyzed in isolation. “Hungary ends up becoming a symbol because it managed to sustain this model for longer. But it is not a unique case. You have similar movements happening in other places”, he said.
In Soller’s reading, this is precisely why the election gains relevance outside of Europe. “This election helps answer a bigger question: to what extent does this type of political arrangement continue to be electorally viable?”, he stated.
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And it is this response that, according to him, tends to reverberate beyond Hungary. “What happens there doesn’t just stay there. This influences the way other political groups, in other countries, evaluate their own strategies”, he said.
