The first round of Hungary’s recent parliamentary elections have seen the clear victory of the center-right liberal Fidesz under Viktor Orban. They have also resulted in the 26-seat gain for a nationalist protest party, Jobbik (from the Hungarian jobb for right), which Frank Furedi describes here (via Will at the League). Jobbik is the more successful, slightly updated partner of Igazsag es Elet (Justice and Life), which was generating the same worries a decade ago that Jobbik is generating now. As it turns out, MIEP’s appeal was a flash in the pan. Jobbik may have more staying power, but I doubt it.

The difference between the two parties is that Jobbik is tapping into far greater discontent brought on by the financial crisis and recession, and so for the moment it has enjoyed far greater success. Hungary was among the financially worst-hit European countries, and Hungarians have lost confidence in both capitalism and electoral democracy more than any other nation in Europe. Amid this gloom, a protest movement such as Jobbik was bound to make inroads when the incumbent Socialists were utterly discredited and a mainstream liberal party such as Fidesz is not going to appeal to the most disaffected and alienated segments of the population.

There will be a temptation for many Americans and western Europeans to wail and gnash their teeth about this result. No doubt Jackson Diehl will resume commenting ignorantly on Hungarian politics as he did eight years ago when he baselessly accused Orban of preaching a Nazi-esque policy of Lebensraum when Orban used a completely neutral Hungarian word, eletter, in the context of opening up Hungary to the labor of ethnic Hungarians from neighboring countries. As the late, great Balint Vazsonyi pointed out soon thereafter:

Apparently, during a morning radio program, Mr. Orban spoke of closer economic cooperation between Hungarians residing in the Hungarian living sphere and those 3 million Hungarians whose living sphere is within the borders of other countries. The discussion had to do with economic spheres, and nothing whatever with territorial revisions or demands.

I bring up this old disagreement to make an important point, which is that Orban and his politics have never been the danger that Diehl once claimed. Eight years ago, it was considered appropriate to try to demonize an utterly mainstream, center-right Hungarian political party in the most despicable way in a major American newspaper. We can now see how wrong Diehl was, and we can be grateful that Orban and Fidesz are nothing like what he tried to make them out to be. We can see that Orban represents the tradition of Hungarian right-liberalism, which is now arrayed against the forces that Jobbik represents.

P.S. Note to The New York Times–it is Fidesz, not Fidezs. The name is an abbreviation of the original Hungarian name for the Alliance of Young Democrats, and the name wouldn’t make sense if it were spelled the other way.