Divide and Conquer – AKP (Turkey) and Fidesz (Hungary) Strategies Towards Opposition Parties

From an authoritarianist’s perspective, the outcome of elections can not be left to chance. The presentation will argue that both Erdogan and Orban prefer a blend of co-optation, intimidation and criminalisation to ‘mange’ opposition parties and politicians, however much more limited and less intense in Hungary compared to Turkey. As context variables, the ‘conquering’ of the judiciary and administration, the media, and the military are important prerequisites of establishing illiberal democracy, with again considerable differences between Turkey and Hungary. Electoral engineering plays a role in both cases, in Hungary at the beginning of the Orban rule, in Turkey just recently. In Turkey, president Erdogan currently co-opts the ultra-nationalist MHP with offering rewards for support for instance by the judiciary and in the electoral reform. Different blends of intimidation and criminalisation are applied towards the republican CHP and the pro- Kurdish HDP, with the help of a conquered media and the judicial system. In Hungary, Orban co-opted (and marginalised) the Christian Democratic People's Party (KDNP), while the Hungarian Socialists and the ultra-nationalist Jobbik (as second and third strongest party) are fought with a blend of co-optation and intimidation. Compared to Turkey, criminalisation and imprisonment is more rare (resulting partly from the coup attempt of July 2016 in Turkey and the subsequent state of emergency rule). The proposed presentation will further elaborate on these strategies, with a focus on similarities and differences between the cases.