Foreign Digest: Moldova and Hungary

Moldova: The former Soviet Republic of Moldova has left the Commonwealth of Independent States, the post-Soviet organization formed by the Russian Federation for its former Soviet Republics after the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1991. The move underscores the turn by Moldova away from Russia, like other Eastern European States and former Soviet Republics, and toward Europe and the West. As I have posted, Russia keeps troops against Moldova’s wishes in the breakaway Transnistria region, inhabited by ethnic Russians. Under Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin, a former Soviet intelligence officer who has been trying to reconstitute the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire, the Russians have invaded the former Soviet Republics of Georgia and Ukraine. Hungary: The center-right TISZA party, led by conservative Peter Magyar, has won the majority of votes and seats in the high-turnout Hungarian parliamentary elections today, ending 16 years of rule by the far-right Fidesz party, led by Viktor Orban. The anti-migrant pro-Russian Orban ruled autocratically and corruptly and was an icon of the nationalist movement in Europe. Despite open election interference on his behalf by Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, who campaigned in Hungary for Orban, and being the darling of far-right isolationists, xenophobes and Trumpists, Magyar’s party won in a landslide. He will form a government that he will lead as premier. As I have posted, Hungary, a former Soviet satellite state, is a member of the European Union and is an ally of the United States as a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, but has been an obstacle to EU decisions that require unanimity, particularly in support of Ukraine against Russian aggression, and even to NATO defense buildups to counter the Russian threat, and Fidesz had been forced out of the center-right European Peoples’ Party parliamentary group in the European Parliament. Orban, who had nationalized universities, undermined the independence of the judiciary, ruled by decree, compromised the freedoms of association and the press, and kept out migrants and refugees seeking asylum from persecution, was seen as a model for America by Trump and the authoritarian far right, as I have posted. Orban’s authoritarianism had made it difficult for opposition candidates, but a scandal inspired Magyar, a government official, to break with Fidesz. Hungary was the poorest member of the EU, in part because of its anti-migrant policy. The far right in Europe and America openly preferred Orban even over the conservative opposition, whose victory today is a major blow to them and to Russian tyrant Putin. Hungary now joins Poland, Romania, Austria, Germany, and the EU where, within the last two years, the center right has defeated the far right in elections, which suggests a center-right party in America could defeat the Trumpist Republican Party, if the GOP fails to return to its conservative principles.