Hungary

Six months after the elections, the first cracks are appearing in the National Cooperation System. Figures associated with the old order are expected to begin their departures, a transition that feels less like a reshuffle and more like the end of an era. Recent arrests and investigations are increasingly framed not as isolated scandals, but as evidence of how deeply the state and party merged over the last decade.

The new government is making a point of being different. Minister Zoltán Tarr says they have no interest in copying the previous administration’s recipe, while the Polish foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, claims to have the receipts—specifically financial transfers and audio recordings—linking the former government to Russia. It is a busy morning for those attempting to draw a line between the old system and the new.

Péter Takács, the State Secretary for Health, has offered a more creative explanation for the country's demographic challenges. He attributed a dramatic fall in the national birth rate to the current Prime Minister, Péter Magyar. In the world of official explanations, it seems some habits of the old system are harder to break than others.