Eastern European autocrats pose new test for democracy

From Hungary’s Orbán and Czech Republic’s Zeman to Erdoğan in Turkey, a new breed of democratic strongman is emerging

A 40-minute drive south-west of Budapest, Felcsút is a typical Hungarian village on the surface, its cottages strung out neatly along either side of the long main street. Untypical of the Hungarian countryside, however, is the frenzy of building activity here. Private security guards watch over armies of men in hard hats, bulldozers, and cranes toiling in the sweltering heat to complete a fancy new football stadium dwarfing the pretty cottage gardens and vegetable patches.

Then there are half a dozen practice pitches plus a “football academy” named after Hungary‘s footballing saint, Ferenc Puskás, the Real Madrid maestro of the 1960s.

The village of 1,800 seems a strange location for such investment. But Felcsút is also home to Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s powerful prime minister who happens to be a football fanatic and who has also changed the law to facilitate such investments.

Megalomania? Vanity project? Or just another aspect of the dizzying pace of change in Hungary since Orbán and his Fidesz party won a landslide in elections three years ago?

theGuardian