JOHN REES replies to Claudia Webbe
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Orban and Vucic triumphant: liberalism in peril
KEVIN OVENDEN looks at how the Hungarian and Serbian elections failed to go the way the political centre wanted — and why that is as much the fault of the neoliberal opposition as it is due to support for the hard right
Hungarian and Serbian leaders Viktor Orban and Aleksander Vucic have been comfortably re-elected
There is no justification for spending colossal amounts of money on so-called defence — sacrificing our education, health and transport while they’re at it, says BERT SCHOUWENBURG
GEOFFREY BELL looks at the curiously unsupportive stance of British progressives of the Easter Rising
On the eve of the Communist Party of Ireland’s 27th congress JIMMY CORCORAN reiterates the principles that guided James Connolly
But that’s OK, says MATT KERR, as talking is what will help us get things done
Why a defeat of the miners still haunts Britain’s rulers, says PHIL KATZ
SUNDAY’S ELECTIONS in Hungary and Serbia saw the return of incumbent right-wing nationalist leaders Viktor Orban and Aleksander Vucic against widespread predictions that they would do worse.
Orban’s Fidesz party won 135 of the 199 seats in the Hungarian parliament, giving him a two-thirds majority and a fifth term as prime minister. Vucic increased his direct vote for the presidency to 2.18 million. His party lost support in the parliamentary elections but that did not go to the liberal opposition. In both countries parties of the far right gained as did those ranging from sceptical of the West and its institutions through to pro-Russian.
The result should temper the triumphalism of politicians of the liberal centre who hailed first the victory of Emmanuel Macron in France five years ago and then of Joe Biden in the US as the vanquishing of “populism,” the restoration of “normal” politics and the inexorable advance of “progressive” capitalism.
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