How is it possible that Viktor Orban was voted out after 16 years in power in Hungary, and his rival, Péter Magyar, won by such a large margin that he can even make constitutional changes to restore checks and balances to the country’s governing system? 

After all, we have heard time and again that Hungary is no longer democratic. So how is it possible that the government was replaced, perhaps even without unrest?

This is precisely the sentiment that supporters of the coalition in Israel have been trying to amplify since the results of the elections were announced. MK Simcha Rothman wrote: “A bunch of lunatics shouted here in the streets for a year that the judicial reform would destroy democracy in Israel and that we would soon become Hungary. And today we discovered that in Hungary it is possible to replace the ‘dictator’ through democratic elections.”

Prof. Yuval Elbashan wrote: “It will be interesting to see how our constitutional clerics will explain to their flock tomorrow the news from Hungary – that the terrible dictatorship simply… fell at the ballot box?… What luck that Hungary forgot to read the opinions of our experts who roared that it was over, that this was the end of democracy.”

These are straw-man attacks. No serious scholar has thought or claimed that Hungary is a dictatorship in the literal sense – an absolute authoritarian regime – but rather that it is a country undergoing significant democratic erosion, carried out gradually and sometimes imperceptibly, yet one that still leads to substantial decay in core components:........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)