wh y w e l o s t
10
Since 2002, several recently independent countries rid themselves of authoritarian, na-
tional-populist regimes and entered the club of consolidating democracies. In Croatia, the
ideologically mixed (centrist–leftist), anti-Tudjman opposition won elections in 2000 and
formed a broad coalition. Its rule, however, proved to be a series of missed opportunities and
scarce success. Given this, and the fact that post-Tudjman Croatian Democratic Community
(HDZ) learned the lesson of moderation, the party was returned to power in the 2004 elec-
tions. This offers the optimistic prospect of future alternation in power of two major moder-
ate blocs. Serbia also did away with the regime of Slobodan Milošević, but the democratic,
non-authoritarian elements of its new government remain deeply troubled by a division
separating parties on questions of the past, Serbian nationalism and attitudes towards the
Hague tribunal. Cutting across the entire political spectrum, this cleavage divides also the
(potentially moderate) right. Prospect for moderation in Serbia are thus rather bleaker.
Further, substantial changes and dramatic developments have occurred within the tradition-
al parties as a result of widespread popular dissatisfaction with their policies and conduct.
Electorates often have denied support to long-established parties (be they in government
or in opposition). The most interesting are the cases in which popular disappointment did
not lead to a vote for the traditional opposition, but rather to support for new challengers
– be they radical and extremist parties emerging from the margins of political system (the
Communists in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Self-Defense in Poland, or the Greater
Romania Party), or to completely new competitors (the League of Polish Families).
Finally, new parties have emerged in the region by mobilizing their support differently
than the traditional actors and campaigning on new issues. This was the case when sup-
port denied to failing traditional parties went to newly emerging antiestablishment parties
of either largely centrist and ‘benign’ populism (National Movement Simeon II in Bulgar-
ia) or to more ideologically colored, antiestablishment critics of the right (New Era in Lat-
via,
Res Publica
in Estonia and the Alliance of the New Citizen in Slovakia) or left (
Smer
in Slovakia). These new claimants to power thrived on the establishment’s incapability to
fulfill their electoral promises and deliver effective policies. They based their campaigns
on issues of public ethics, competence and political conduct and style – with corruption
and neglect of public interest as a common denominator – rather than on policy issues.
This strategy often struck a chord with frustrated electorates and was rewarded in the form
of votes, seats and incumbency.
These and other tendencies manifested themselves also within the center-right camp,
members of which often suffered serious blows and splits. Some remained major opposi-
tion forces (Hungary, Macedonia), but others did not. The Homeland Union in Lithuania
went through a dramatic change, from being a dominant ruling force to near outsider
status, from which it has recovered notably during the last few years. Right-of-center co-
alitions such as Solidarity Election Action in Poland and the Democratic Convention in
Romania decomposed. Some, like the National Christian Democratic Peasant Party in
Romania, fell into oblivion. The Polish right, stable in public opinion, but organizationally
shaky, has even reinvented itself once again.
This leads us to the emergence of the new actors professing to be on the right – the new
‘antiestablishment right.’ New Era,
Res Publica
, and the Alliance of the New Citizen more
or less explicitly declared their right-of-center orientation, while campaigning against the
