Year of the rapper and the consolidation of power

Year of the rapper and the consolidation of power

The year of the rapper

Nepal like New York City just elected a young former rapper as its leader. The Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) won a landslide victory in Nepal’s election – the first held since last year’s youth-led protests toppled the then government. RSP’s Balendra Shah will be the country’s next prime minister. Like Peter Magyar’s party in Hungary the RSP is new, having started in 2022. Shah previously was mayor of Kathmandu. The youth-led protests that broke out last year forced the then prime minister KP Sharma Oli to resign only to run again in the new election. His party came in third. The RSP received 182 seats, falling short of achieving a two-thirds supermajority in the parliament’s lower house by only two seats. The Nepali Congress came in second with 38 seats, Oli’s party was third with only 25 seats and Oli, himself, also was defeated for his seat by a member of RSP. 

I wonder if Snoop Dogg has political aspirations? 

Consolidated power 

Hungary

Hungary just voted out Viktor Orbán after a 16 year rule. The left rejoiced and the media was jubilant calling Orbán a Trump favorite. Trump, knowing that Orbán was in trouble, had dispatched vice president Vance to Hungary to campaign for him. Orbán had endorsed Trump in 2024 – I wonder if that affected the Hungarian-American vote. So I guess Trump was repaying the favor and was trying to sway the American-Hungarian voters. Vance spoke to over 1,000 Orbán supporters at a rally at in Budapest telling the crowd: “We have got to get Viktor Orbán reelected as prime minister of Hungary, don’t we?” Trump sent a video message saying Orbán had his “complete and total endorsement” and was a “fantastic guy.”

Well apparently not since Orbán lost in a landslide to Peter Magyar’s insurgent Tisza party which was founded in 2020. He criticized Orbán’s “illiberal democracy” which was based on the government consolidating control over key state institutions, including the judiciary and media. Magyar who once had been a member of Orbán’s Fidesz party campaigned on corruption, healthcare, transport, and the restoration of Hungary’s ties with the EU and NATO. His victory should reduce Hungary’s role as a spoiler inside the EU. Orbán often sided with Putin against the EU. He voted against loans by the EU to Ukraine and received an exemption from Trump to buy Russian oil.

The left was overjoyed in one of Trump’s buddies being ousted. Chuck Schumer sent a congratulatory message to Magyar and tweeted “Pay attention, Donald Trump. Wannabe dictators wear out their welcome. November 2026 can’t come soon enough.” Apparently, Schumer must think that Magyar will joint Spain in being ruled by the left. But he is wrong.

But I am glad that Orbán is gone as well. I did not care for his continuing to centralize power and moving away from democratic rule. I know that is what the left rails that Trump is doing but don’t they realize that centralized power is at the heart of socialism too? I guess the left has forgotten about Obama ruling (like Trump) by executive order. The left cheers Orbán’s defeat for his opposition to immigration and gay rights. But although the left may be ecstatic, the Tisza Party is not on the left. It is a conservative, pro-European, populist party. Magyar’s stance on immigration may actually be stricter than Orban’s. Magyar actually criticized Orbán for admitting too manymigrants under Hungary’s guest worker program. We will have to wait and see if Magyar will return to a less centralized model for governing as promised.

My fear is that the Trump model will be emulated by the next democrat president who will continue to demand equity positions in private corporations, issue more executive orders, weaponize the DOJ and the rest of the federal bureaucracy against the democratic institutions that have made this country free and great. Magyar’s victory should be a signal to both the left and the right that the voters will tire of a nationalist strongman and move to reinstitute the democratic model.  It is also a warning shot to both parties that voters tire of a system where neither party addresses vital issues giving birth to a new party that displaces the old. Do I hear Tea Party anyone?

Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe’s ruling party, Zanu-PF is trying to amend their constitution to replace public voting in presidential elections with selection by the parliament and extend the presidential term from five to seven years. The current president Emmerson Mnangagwa to stick around for a couple of more years. The opposition party say that Mnangagwa is seeking to entrench power and this is a “slow coup” stripping citizens of the ability to directly elect a president. Yet in countries like England, Canada and Nepal the leader of the country is the head of the majority party in the legislature. So we would have had Nancy Pilosi as prime minister. How would that have worked out?

Vietnam

Meanwhile, centralization seems to be a common theme. Vietnam has just named To Lam, the head of their communist party, as president. Previously, the country was governed with a collective leadership model. The power was distributed across the two positions to prevent consolidation of power. No more. Vietnam currently has both private enterprises and state-owned enterprises and Lam may want greater state control of the private sector. The markets may be concerned about increases in corruption as Lam expands state-owned enterprises. The markets also worry if Lam may inhibit the private sector leading to a decrease in economic growth. The consolidation of power raises an empirical question as to whether centralized governments are more prone to corruption than more decentralized governments.