The Pandemic Propels Populists to Power

By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

We know that nationalism, isolationism, xenophobia, and attacks on the liberal world order have been increasing for years. That trend will be accelerated by the pandemic.

Many governments have used the crisis to give themselves emergency powers, moving them still further away from democracy.

In late March, Philippine strongman Rodrigo Duterte rammed a bill through his country’s parliament that granted him vastly expanded emergency powers, ostensibly to fight the novel coronavirus.

The measure granting Duterte the new powers was approved by Philippine lawmakers using Zoom, the remote teleconferencing service, and put the country under a “state of national emergency.”

The bill authorized Duterte to reallocate the national budget as he saw fit and to personally direct hospitals. “Do not challenge the government,” he insisted in a televised address. “You will lose.”

However, Duterte failed to win approval to take over private companies and utilities, authority he had sought.

Also that month, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban pushed even more expansive emergency legislation through his parliament, enabling him to suspend existing laws, decree new ones, and arrest individuals deemed to be peddling “falsehoods” about the pandemic or “obstructing” the government’s efforts to fight it.

“He is using this crisis to further increase his power,” remarked András Bíró-Nagy, the director of the Budapest-based Policy Solutions think tank. “The Hungarian prime minister enjoys the situation where he can act as a captain in a crisis. I don’t see him giving up these powers again easily.”

Although parliament did lift this authorization in mid-June, the fact that it was ever in force in the first place is worrying. Hungary’s case demonstrates that populism can degenerate into arbitrary rule, and it should make observers suspicious of the democratic loyalties of populists in power.

Duterte’s and Orban’s COVID-19 power grabs were especially brazen, but they were far from the only attempts by authoritarian leaders or parties to use the current health crisis as an excuse to curtail civil liberties or undermine the rule of law.

Authoritarian regimes in Bangladesh, Belarus, Cambodia, China, Egypt, El Salvador, Syria, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, Venezuela, and Vietnam have all detained critics, health workers, journalists, and opposition members during the pandemic.

Democracies that have lately come under assault, meanwhile, such as Brazil, India, and Poland, have seen populist leaders or ruling parties seize on the crisis to remove checks on their power or weaken the opposition.

Hybrid regimes, whose electoral mechanisms combine democratic and autocratic elements, are at risk of receding into electoral autocracies.

“In states of emergency, there may be a need to temporarily derogate from certain rights and procedures but any such measures need to be temporary, proportionate and absolutely necessary from a public health perspective,” contends Lydia Gall, an Eastern Europe researcher with Human Rights Watch.

Democracy was faltering globally even before the pandemic, as populism gained strength after the 2008 crash, with more and more jobs insecure and poorly paid.

For each of the past 14 years, according to Freedom House, which released its Freedom in the World 2020 report in March, more countries experienced an erosion of political rights and civil liberties than strengthened political rights and civil liberties.

People in 64 countries experienced deterioration in their political rights and civil liberties in 2019, while those in just 37 countries experienced improvements. Democracy has declined in 25 of the 41 established democracies since 2006. This has reversed the pattern of the preceding 15 post-Cold War years.

“The unchecked brutality of autocratic regimes and the ethical decay of democratic powers are combining to make the world increasingly hostile to fresh demands for better governance,” said Sarah Repucci, Freedom House vice president for research.

Also, according to the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, an intergovernmental organization that supports democracy around the world, at least 70 countries and territories across the globe have postponed various elections and referenda due to COVID-19.

When societies reopen, continued large-scale unemployment and economic distress may well fuel more populism, whose advocates are ready to mobilize against an establishment that, they contend, has deprived people of their freedom and livelihoods at the same time.