9
F or e wor d
half of the 1990s. The second, equally obvious fact is that with the exception of Slovakia, each
failed to defend its incumbency in the early years of the next decade. This group of countries
is far from homogenous. They differ as to whom the center right defeated, as well as with
respect to whom it consequently succumbed. The questions of how and why this happened
will be touched upon in individual country chapters and in the concluding section.
In the first respect, generally, center-right forces defeated either unreformed Communists
employing nationalism and economic populism (Romania, Bulgaria) or a reformed and
more-or-less moderate, post-Communist left (Poland, Hungary, Macedonia and Lithu-
ania). Only in the case of Slovakia was it something else – national populism with semi-
authoritarian leanings, which was non-leftist, but certainly not moderate.
In the second respect, four years later the parties in our analysis were mainly beaten by
the counterpart they had previously defeated. In Hungary and Macedonia, the parties on
the right lost to their traditional social-democratic rivals. In the case of Poland, it was a
resurgent, moderate left, which in the meantime had gone through organizational con-
solidation. In Lithuania, it was the post-Communist, moderate left in alliance with a new
moderate leftist party. The Romanian right was ousted from power by the formerly unre-
constructed left, which during its period in opposition underwent further modernization
and moderation. Only in Bulgaria did the right lose to a completely new challenger – an
anti-establishment party of benign, centrist populism.
There are several caveats to be pointed out in case of Slovakia (which, clearly, has been in-
cluded in this study as a contrasting case) which may account for its exceptionalism, i.e.
the absence of consequent electoral defeat of the right. Without the intent to anticipate an
explanation provided later in the chapter on Slovakia, it is useful to mention that in Slovakia
the center right actually did not defeat the post-Communist left, but a national populist bloc.
The proper left was the right’s hesitant ally in this effort. Further, the task of ‘constructing’ a
viable moderate right and the mission of fighting the authoritarianism of Vladimír Mečiar’s
regime coincided before the 1998 elections, just as well as they coincided with the center
right’s rule and its maintenance later. This, together with the intervening factor of pending
accession to EU, may have decisively contributed to the fact that the right has not conse-
quently yielded either to Mečiar’s party (which completely lost coalition potential and was
not able to rule alone) or the new, leftist-populist challenger,
Smer
.
The fact that in six of our seven cases the center right failed (sometimes dramatically) to
defend its governing position will be analyzed elsewhere. What remains to mention are
the direct and indirect ramifications of these defeats for the political scenes of the respec-
tive countries in general and for the center right, in particular.
There are several major trends that can be distinguished in Central and East European
politics since the crumbling of the right’s dominance in the late 1990s. Not all of them are
a direct result of the center-right electoral failures in 2000-2002 – actually, they are rather
the consequence of center right’s conduct in power than electoral failures as such. On a
systemic level, to be sure, in the early years of the new century we witnessed a reassertion
of the left in positions of power. But there are other developments within politics in the
region that are more interesting than just a pendulum swing, the most important being the
entrance of the new countries into the club of democracies, dramatic developments within
traditional parties, and the emergence of the new parties.
