These Eastern European populists aren’t like the others
Neither candidate is, by any stretch, an authoritarian or a proto-fascist, and both are pointedly non-ideological
This weekend, Slovakia and neighboring Ukraine will hold presidential elections in which anti-establishment — though not right-wing — forces are poised to do well. Eastern European voters, known for their conservatism and xenophobic leanings, are about to show that the rise of populism isn’t primarily about these things. It’s more do with the electorate’s desire to be heard and its rejection of establishment corruption. In Saturday’s run-off in Slovakia’s presidential election, political novice Zuzana Čaputová is expected to beat Maroš Šefčovič, the country’s European commissioner. Čaputová is an anti-corruption activist who rose to prominence amid the wave of protests following last year’s murders of an investigative journalist and his fiancée. For years, she had fought against the businessman charged with the killings, trying to force the authorities to close a landfill in her hometown. The murders focused Slovaks’ attention on the links between international organised crime and t...
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