Hungarian politics polarized as the austerity program bit. The nationalist daily Magyar Hírlap described Hungary as being slowly garroted by a “credit noose around our necks.”37 For the extremists of Hungary’s Far Right it was a short step back in time from the “neocolonialism” of the EU and the IMF to the Treaty of Trianon, which had eviscerated Hungary after World War I. In 2010 the right-wing Fidesz party would reap the benefits with a crushing electoral victory, setting Hungary on the path to a self-declared illiberal democracy.
