Going nowhere: Europe’s right-wing populists will survive the end of Trump

Julia Holewińska, 37, a Polish playwright and a mother of a 13-year-old daughter, still doesn’t like talking about what happened on 22 October. 

It was around midnight. She was standing with a group of women in front of the house of Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of the ruling Law and Justice Party, the deputy prime minister in charge of police and security forces, and the man widely considered the most powerful politician in the country.

They were protesting the newly passed law that places a near-total ban on abortion, even in cases of congenitally damaged fetuses. The police reacted quickly, and brutally, when they arrested her and 16 others.  

 “The worst thing is not even the arrest, the handcuffs, the way they pull you into the police car, or the police verbal aggressiveness, the strip-search, the detention, the interrogation, the 19 hours spent alone in a cell,” she says, taking deep breaths as she recalls what happened. 

“The fear comes when you return home because a situation like this takes away your sense of dignity, your sense of safety, and it makes you feel dirty. Then, it constantly comes back because it is a very traumatic experience.”

The surge of the populist far right in central and eastern Europe has meant repression which seemed unlikely just a few years ago is slowly appearing. In countries such as Poland and Hungary, right-wing governments have cracked down on dissent and launched a wave of fear within the borders of a European Union that prides itself on liberal values and civil liberties.

The Law and Justice Party has been in power since 2015, when it won an outright parliamentary majority, the first party to do so since the collapse of communism and the subsequent political fragmentation.

In Hungary, Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party has been in power since 2010. It is arguably the most successful populist government of all and has been at the vanguard of central Europe’s far-right drift, where similar populist movements have taken hold in Slovenia, Romania and Bulgaria. Its influence has been felt in western Europe, in places like Italy, with Matteo Salvini’s Northern League. While not on the far right, even the Conservative Party under Boris Johnson has embraced populism. 

Mikołaj Łoziński is a Polish author who has seen a marked change in attitudes in his country.

Eight years ago he started researching what would become his bestselling novel Stramer, which chronicles the story of a family of Jews in pre-Holocaust Poland.

At first, he was worried that some of his characters, mainly those of political populists and nationalists, wouldn’t be convincing; that he wouldn’t be able to bring them to life. He says he was writing it in what now seems like a very different Poland.

“In 2012, Poland seemed to be open, tolerant, pro-European, forward-looking, and nationalists seemed to be something of a distant past, almost extinct dinosaurs,” Łoziński tells The Independent.

“Sadly, current reality came to my aid in writing about them and showing all the tensions in Polish society before the outbreak of the war.

"And today, no one is surprised anymore by the sight of nationalists marching with torches, throwing flares on the main streets of major Polish cities.”

He has travelled extensively across Poland to promote his book. But only recently, during meetings with his readers, has he started hearing a very personal and troubling question that goes beyond the realm of literature, asked in various forms by both men and women alike: “Should I emigrate? Should I leave Poland? Should my family be packing before the government starts prosecuting?”

At first, he did not know what to say in response. “These are very important and personal decisions but then I came up with an answer: that Polish history, especially the recent one with [trade union] Solidarity and the [1989] Round Table Talks, shows that Poland is a country where everything can happen, also the good things, and it is worth striving for them because no one else will do it for us, especially if we all leave.”

He follows the news from Budapest and the populism there. 

“Hungary is much further in this process. We sort of follow them; we are a few steps behind them,” he says.

The next parliamentary elections in Hungary are to be held around April 2022.

The Hungarian opposition decided earlier this month that despite all their ideological differences, they would unite on the same list to be able to try and beat Fidesz. This undoubtedly will give them a higher chance of winning the election.  

However, Fidesz is still leading the polls ahead of any opposition party, even if support has decreased because of the impact of the Covid crisis. Should that crisis deepen further – Hungary this week reported more than 315,000 Covid-19 cases and almost 9,000 deaths with the healthcare system under severe strain – especially among the countryside Fidesz voter base, it could weaken Fidesz. 

"A cataclysmic event is needed for any systemic change, the more Fidesz is staying in power, the more cataclysmic that change will be,” says Botond Feledy, a senior fellow at The Centre for Euro-Atlantic Integration and Democracy in Brussels.

Away from western Europe, there has been one leader who has allied to the populist leaders of Poland and Hungary, US president Donald Trump. But he will be gone by late January, which has led some to speculate that the power of the European populists might be on the wane.

However, those on the ground are sceptical that Trump leaving the White House will mean populism being on the decline in central Europe.

 “Orban has been in power well before Trump's arrival. The current government cycle under his tenure has run since 2010, furthermore, he has been the head of his party for around 30 years. He is the only political figure [in the region] who has been active in the first line of politics since the fall of the Iron Curtain,” adds Feledy.

Populist regimes – with their strong anti-elitism and anti-pluralism elements – are by nature introvert, says Feledy. 

“An ally such as Trump is less necessary than enemies and opponents, such as 'Brussels', 'liberals' or George Soros himself [the Hungarian-born billionaire, who many on the right see as being behind global ‘plots’]. These regimes thrive on enemy narratives and actually they share less enemies than one would think: Trump's main enemy, China, has been an ally for PM Orban just to begin with. So populism will survive Trump and will adapt to the new international settings.”

Back in Poland, Holewińska’s court case is still pending but she does not want to play “a heroine” regarding her arrest and the anxieties that came afterwards. She says that she was among the privileged and the lucky ones, she knew her rights and her husband, along with an attorney, almost immediately arrived at the police station. 

Since that day, more than 80 people have been arrested. “We are certainly heading in a very dangerous direction with the violations of the constitution and basic human rights,” she adds.

She is not alone with the sense of anxiety and fear for the future – her own, her small family, and her country

But despite the traumatic experience and many of her friends being abroad or thinking of leaving Poland, Holewińska is not planning to stop protesting or giving up. For now, she fights back with the tools she has. 

She has written a one-act play based on her recent experiences. The premiere will take place in Portugal in March.