wh y w e l o s t
136
A few generalizations and examples should precede actual country-by-country treatment.
In defining the right, the main rival alternatives were conservative-liberal (or neo-liberal)
and national-Christian-conservative parties (the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and
the Baltic States). In other cases, the rivalry in this respect did not exist (Macedonia) or
was influenced, postponed and overshadowed by a conflict with a powerful non-right
adversary or adversaries (Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria).
As far as party system configurations and the right’s relationship to other actors was con-
cerned, we have seen the following basic outcomes
2
: (1) alternation of the largely moder-
ate right and left blocks (Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, with the qualification
that this alternation was impaired in the 1990s); (2) appearance of a powerful national-
populist dominant party which appropriated some of the traditional rightist appeals and
frustrated creation of the viable moderate right (Slovakia, Croatia); and (3) contest and
alternation of the incipient right with strong, unreformed left (Romania, Bulgaria) in a
highly polarized environment.
Regarding the second and third cases, the moderate right (but also the moderate left)
was weak and fragmented. A viable, moderate right had to be sometimes laboriously
constructed from among market liberals, moderate nationalists and Christian demo-
crats (and even some moderate leftists) in an opposition struggle with the authoritarian-
leaning rule of dominant radicals. The moderate right’s development was often bound to
take place in coalition with non-right forces or in an inescapable but distorting alliance
with the moderate left. This was certainly not a catastrophe, but it did have an impact
on how the right developed. The moderate right was able to win only when the public
began to disapprove of authoritarian excesses or dramatic economic conditions under
the ruling national populists or post-Communists. The paramount importance of the
EU factor must not be forgotten here. As radicals came to be perceived as an obstacle to
a nation’s ambition to join the EU, it made the case for the moderate, pro-Western right
much more viable.
In
Bulgaria
, the UDF originated in the strong anti-Communist emotions and stance of a
part of the population. Throughout the 1990s, the UDF was transformed from a coalition
of some fourteen parties and organizations into a unified party organization that only in
an advanced stage of party-building took up an ideology, Christian democracy, and tried
to implant it on the party. In general, and maybe because of its preoccupation with inter-
nal consolidation, the UDF practically never sought to absorb and marginalize its smaller
non-socialist partners; a coalition strategy was preferred instead. (Of course, the party
made sure to dominate the ADF coalition while in power.)
Power was handed to the UDF and its allies by the 1996 popular riots against “life under
the post-Communists.” The Socialists discredited themselves by their immense arrogance,
corruption, and refusal to implement basic pro-market reforms which resulted in an acute
economic crisis. The UDF, however, deservedly earned its right to rule, as it succeeded in
presenting itself as a viable alternative. It also passed the test of overcoming narrow group
egoism when it managed to come to terms with its partners regarding the use of primary
elections as a mechanism for selecting a presidential candidate.
2
With few but important reservations, this scheme is adopted fromVachudová.
