Péter Magyar’s historic defeat of Viktor Orbán in Hungary’s recent election was rightly celebrated in progressive circles and beyond. For the global far right, which has been steadily gaining power and influence for over a decade, this was a significant reverse. But it was no victory for the left. A former member of Mr Orbán’s Fidesz party, Mr Magyar will lead a centre‑right conservative government in a parliament where the only opposition will come from Fidesz and a small party with neo-Nazi roots.

Across the rest of central Europe, it is much the same story. Bulgaria last week elected a nationalist, Moscow‑friendly prime minister, Rumen Radev, who will take a draconian line on migration and is a fierce critic of the European Union’s green deal. The country’s Socialist party, a presence in parliament since 1989, failed to win a single seat.

In the Czech Republic, the Social Democratic party – a former political powerhouse – has been completely wiped out in two successive elections, and the current prime minister, Andrej Babiš, is taking the country down a Trump-style “Czechia First” route. In Slovenia, another Trump admirer is on the brink of becoming the next prime minister. The rightwing populist views of Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, have led to the expulsion of his party from the EU umbrella group of social democratic parties. And in Poland, where the far-right Law and Justice party was finally ousted from power in 2023, the progressive left scored less than 10% in the polls.

What happened? The smell of political scorched earth contrasts starkly with the landscape of the 1990s. As the marketisation of post-communist societies proceeded at sometimes breakneck speed after 1989, rampant inequality and insecurity generated a popular backlash. Former communist parties on the left took power on the pledge that they would soften the pain of transition for vulnerable groups. But as they largely fell into line behind a prevailing liberal economic orthodoxy, that promise was only partially kept amid evidence of corruption and clientelism. Following the 2008 crash, and the migration crisis of 2015, blue-collar, rural and elderly voters moved en masse to the populist right.

In part, of course, this is a chronology that played out across the EU and the west. Centre-left parties have found themselves damned by association with austerity and a failing political establishment. But central European member states are distinguished by the legacy of existing within the former Soviet Union’s orbit, the enduring influence of conservative Christian perspectives, and disillusionment at enduring east-west inequality within the EU. In the absence of a compelling offer from the other end of the spectrum, rightwing nationalists continue to surf these social currents to power.

Dispiritingly, the present impotence of progressive politics means that the EU’s eastern flank is likely to remain a breeding ground for Orbán-style populism. In Poland and now Hungary, liberal voters judged centre-right parties to be the best vehicle for wresting back democracies captured and corrupted by authoritarian governments. The vindication of that strategy ensures the better safeguarding of the rights of minorities, and better relations with Brussels. But festering social and economic divides are likely to persist. Central Europe needs a new left to emerge which can both defend democratic values, and point the way to a more egalitarian future.