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.

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.

7 Comments

  1. These polls are NEVER accurate. When you survey small groups you can get any result you want by throwing out forms that don’t produce the desired result. . These “Polls” can be slanted to get any result the group running the poll wants. I would bet our usual anti-Hungarian, anti Polish government paid Soros troublemakers NGO’s paid for this survey.

  2. When most people perceive that true Democracy ( not the farce of supposedly free elections ) is in danger, that means Democracy has already died. That must be the case when one party, which on top of it is a one-man-party, controls literally everything in the country, including state tv ( paid for by all taxpayers ) and about 80-90 % of the media. The peanuts left free are part of the farce.

  3. Some results speak loudly about the stupidity of entire countries, such as the poll that gives higher marks to China’s response to covid19 than USA, notwithstanding China being the creator of virus, which was spread world over after silencing or disappearing whistle-blowers.
    The level of hatred towards USA, the ultimate guarantor of freedom of humankind, is just sickening to judge by this extract: “European countries remain the strongest critics of the US’s global influence, particularly in Germany, Austria, Denmark, Ireland and Belgium where the overall opinion is overwhelmingly negative.”

  4. Nelson Taylor Sol, when you write of the U.S.A. as ” ultimate guarantor of freedom oh humankind ” are you referring to the freedom for their citizens to buy machine guns in the convenience store around the corner? Or the freedom of philantropic institutions such as Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib? Or, perhaps, to the free napalm the U.S. generously poured on the people of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia: thanks to those generous gifts of the U.S. still today many children in those countries are born sith disabilities, cancers, malformations. Not to speak of the deforestation of tropical forest.
    Or is it the freedom the U.S. so generously brought to Iraq and Afghanistan?
    Last, not least, are you referring perhaps to the freedom the U.S. guarantee to Palestinians, i.e. the freedom to starve in Israel’s concentration camps?
    U.S. as guarantors? No, thank you. In that case, I rather stick with China.

  5. The People’s Liberation Army extends warm greetings to Citizen Mario.

    Free accommodation (all meals provided) is guaranteed within the XINJIANG RE-EDUCATION CAMPS whenever you choose to accept our offer.

  6. 12 months ago it was easy to criticise Americans for buying guns. Now, with the BLM and Antifa gangs ( both receiving Soros money by the way) terrorising citizens and left wing politicians cutting the funding of police and allowing violence looting and destruction the argument for gun control is over. There is no way Americans will give up their guns Mario!
    Please come back with another argument.

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