Kafkadesk: the majority of Poles and Hungarians think their countries are not democratic enough

Kafkadesk, a news website specialised in Central European issues, published a survey showing that the majority of Poles and Hungarians do not see their country as democratic. 

According to the Democracy Perception Index (DPI) published last month and based on surveys conducted in 53 countries around the world from April to June, only a minority of Poles (38%) and Hungarians (36%) believe their countries to be democratic, says Kafkadesk. Meanwhile, the website says that people living in the two Central European countries regard democracy important (86% in Poland and 78% in Hungary).

Interestingly, the “perceived democratic deficit”, which is the difference between the percentage of people saying democracy is important and the percentage of people saying their country is democratic, reaches its second and third highest levels among surveyed countries with 48 points in Poland and 42 in Hungary.

The perceived democratic deficit is higher only in Venezuela (50 points)

while Taiwan, the Philippines, and Switzerland had the lowest scores in this regard. To the question whether their governments usually act “in the interest of a small group of people”, 64 pc of Poles and 62 pc of Hungarians said yes. Both rates are among the highest ones in the survey and the second and third highest among EU countries where Romania is the “winner” with 66 pc.

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Based on the results, Hungarians and Poles do not fear that a foreign power would try to influence the next elections. Interestingly, the two Central European countries scored almost the same as global great powers China and Russia in this respect. 

Both Hungarians (63 pc) and Poles (57 pc) think that their governments did well during the coronavirus epidemic. Meanwhile, these rates are still below the average of the surveyed countries (70 pc). The latest Freedom House annual report said that Poland left the group of consolidated democracies and entered the category of semi-consolidated ones while Hungary dropped out from democracies and

they placed the country among the transitional/hybrid regimes.

You can read the full report HERE.

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