ICS Working Papers Nº2/2016

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ICS WORKING PAPERS 2016
regimes, with semi-democratic institutions and electoral procedures Inter-war Hungary
and Poland are the closest examples of this.
The stabilization of Hungary following the successful counter-revolution gave rise to a hybrid
regime under the paternal but firm leadership of Admiral Miklós Horthy; however, it was
under the premiership of Count Stephen Bethlen in 1921 that the new regime was
consolidated. Bethlen, as with so many European conservative leaders, believed democracy
was ‘suitable only for rich, well-structured and highly-cultured countries’, which was not true
of Hungary in the 1920s. Hungary needed to be somewhere ‘between unbridled freedom and
unrestrained dictatorship’. He carried out a programme of electoral reform that
reconciled a reduction in the electorate with a clientelist open vote in the rural districts while
retaining the secret ballot in the major cities.
The second step was the creation of a government party that would ensure, through political
pressure and clientelistic procedures, its domination of the system. This was achieved with
the creation of the Unity Party (EP – Egységes Párt), which from 1922 won successive semi-
competitive elections during the Bethlen era. To the EP-dominated house of
representatives was joined an upper house restored in 1925 along corporatist lines, with
representatives of the three religious denominations, 36 professional and economic
chambers, 76 representatives of the counties and municipalities, 48 life members appointed
by Horthy and 38 aristocrats.
When in 1932 Horthy reluctantly appointed Gyula Gömbös prime minister, despite the
fragmentation of the Hungarian extreme right, the regime began to move to the right.
Gömbös, known as ‘Gombolini’ by his political enemies, had been the leader of a right-wing
paramilitary association and was a close associate of Horthy, who nevertheless mitigated the
most radical parts of the former’s strategy. He reorganized the EP, renamed it the Party of
National Unity (NEP – Nemzeti Egység Pártja), gave it more responsibilities in respect of extra-
electoral political mobilization, provided it with a small paramilitary section and turned its
attention to mass mobilization. Gömbös also planned a system of compulsory organized
interest representation based on vertical corporatism inspired by the Italian labour charter,
with several professional chambers in which representatives of both employers and
employees would handle labour issues.
He attempted to suppress the bicameral parliament (through the creation of a council of
state to replace the senate) and presented plans for the creation of a new parliament
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