Democrats across Europe, including Turkey, were heartened(受到鼓舞) by voters’ rejection of Viktor Orban in Hungary’s recent elections. His long tenure as prime minister had become a case study in(成为……的典型案例) “illiberal democracy”. Elections were held, but the surrounding ecosystem was steadily bent(弯曲/扭曲): media were consolidated, courts constrained, civil society pressured and economic power fused(融合/合并) with political loyalty.
包括土耳其在内的欧洲各地民主人士对匈牙利最近选举中选民拒绝维克托·欧尔班感到振奋。他长期担任总理已成为“非自由民主”的典型案例。选举确实举行了，但周围的生态系统逐渐扭曲：媒体被整合，法院受到约束，公民社会受到压力，经济权力与政治忠诚融为一体。
Much of this resonates(产生共鸣/回响) far beyond the Danube. Turkey, too, has seen increasingly illiberal leadership and a gradual narrowing of competitive democratic space. Its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, came to power in 2003 with popular support and strong democratic rhetoric. Yet over time he has turned ever more authoritarian: controlling the media, building loyalist business networks, muzzling(给…戴嘴套/压制言论) civil society and weaponising(武器化/用作武器) the judiciary against the opposition, including my own Republican People’s Party (chp), the second-largest in parliament after Mr Erdogan’s party, Justice and Development (ak). In both Turkey and Hungary, by the late 2010s, politics had shifted from open contestation to managed competition(受管控的竞争), where electoral outcomes are not predetermined, but increasingly guided by the ruling party.
这一切在遥远的蓝色多瑙河之外也引发共鸣。土耳其同样出现了日益严重的非自由领导人和竞争性民主空间的逐步缩小。其总统雷杰普·塔伊普·埃尔多安于2003年凭借民众支持和强烈的民主言论上台。然而，随着时间的推移，他变得越来越威权：控制媒体、建立忠诚的商业网络、钳制公民社会，并将司法武器化以对付反对派，包括我所在的共和人民党（CHP）——议会中仅次于埃尔多安正义与发展党（AK）的第二大党。在土耳其和匈牙利，到2010年代末，政治已从公开竞争转向受管控的竞争，选举结果虽非预设，但越来越受执政党引导。
There are also striking similarities between the democratic opposition movements in both countries. In Hungary’s 2022 election and Turkey’s 2023 election, broad six-party opposition alliances tried to defeat authoritarian incumbents(现任者/在任者). In both cases, however, these alliances—more focused on strengthening ties between the constituent parties’ elites and other establishment figures than on nurturing(培育/培养) grassroots(基层/草根) support—struggled to create a genuine opposition movement. What later succeeded was a new political approach that went beyond formal party alliances: politics rooted in popular mobilisation(大众动员), disciplined messaging and credible leadership.
两国民主反对派运动之间也存在惊人相似之处。在匈牙利2022年选举和土耳其2023年选举中，广泛的六党反对派联盟试图击败威权在任者。然而，在这两种情况下，这些联盟——更注重加强组成政党精英与其他建制派人物之间的联系，而非培育基层支持——都难以创造真正的反对派运动。后来成功的是超越正式政党联盟的新政治方法：植根于大众动员、纪律严明的信息传递和可信领导力的政治。