ABSTRACT
In the context of new democracies, party leaders are often their parties’ founding fathers who guide their organisation through the process of formation and institutionalisation and lead them to success – or failure. This is the context that provides the background for party leadership elections in Hungary. Party change and party system change characterise even the relatively stable cases, like Hungary. More recently, as the result of the 2010 elections, the Hungarian party arena has undergone substantial changes: parties dating back to the period of democratic transition disappeared, new parties emerged and the formerly dominant left party suffered a serious electoral loss. In our analysis we focus on the parties that are represented in the parliament in 2010 while the large parties of systemic change like the liberal Alliance of Free Democrats (SZDSZ) or the conservative Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) that actually disappeared in 2010 are only sporadically mentioned when they are relevant for comparative or analytical reasons.
