Abstract
This chapter provides a concise summary and political assessment of the measures the Hungarian government initiated in the fight of the first three waves of the Covid-19 pandemic. The responses included a legal and political adaptation process with a controversial “Authorization Act”, the strengthening of the healthcare system, social restrictions, economic policies with contested results and a vaccine policy triggering public and political criticism for acquiring Chinese and Russian jabs. Overall, the chapter argues that the policies of the Hungarian government reflected the populist political agenda of the Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán. He used the pandemic (1) to further accuse the domestic opposition and the EU with acting against “the will of the Hungarian people”, (2) to further weaken the system of checks and balances through the adoption of a controversial “special legal order” to avoid hurdles in carrying out “the will of the people”, (3) to initiate policies which discriminated against opposition-controlled municipalities (i.e. “the undeserving non-people” in populist terms) and (4) to claim once again that the government represented “the people” as it listened to their voice expressed in National Consultations on pandemic responses and re-opening strategies.
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Csehi, R. (2023). Hungary: Populist Government Politics. In: Lynggaard, K., Jensen, M.D., Kluth, M. (eds) Governments' Responses to the Covid-19 Pandemic in Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14145-4_13
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