The Hungarian parliamentary elections are set for April 11 and 25. Hungary has had democratic elections since it ended Soviet domination in 1989.

The center-right Hungarian Civic Union (Fidesz) is favored to win by a large margin over the ruling Socialists by promising to boost the economy by cutting taxes, as well as cutting debt, according to Reuters. One poll shows Fidesz with 47% backing and the party in power with only 12%. As in the United States, job creation is key, with unemployment in both countries around 10%.

Two other parties have some support: the right-wing Jobbik (9%) and the conservative Magyar Democratic Forum (3%).

The Democratic Forum (MDF) won Hungary’s first victory post-Communist parliamentary election in 1989, but has been in decline since and needs to attract at least 5% of the total vote to gain any of the seats available by proportional representation. Hungary's electoral system is complicated (click here for more on it, as well as results of recent elections).

After the withdrawal of Soviet troops, the Hungarian Communist Party disbanded and reestablished itself as the Hungarian Socialist Party.

The posters displayed in Hungarian election campaigns are often quite creative. One MDF poster featured a trash bin, along with symbols of the old regime (i.e., a statue of Stalin, Mao’s and Kim Il Sung’s writings, the Communist Party newspaper); another illustrated the back of a bullnecked Soviet soldier, and pasted over his hat the message “Comrades, the End!” in Russian (see figure). The MDF raised funds by selling thousands of copies of this poster. Moreover, its imagery had such appeal that it resurfaced in 1991 in demonstrations in the Baltic countries.

Hungary had earlier experienced democracy. In 1848, a “peaceful revolution,” led by Lajos Kossuth, freed the country from the Austrian Habsburg Empire and a constitutional monarchy was created, which was short lived. To learn more about the political history and election posters of Hungary, see my book, Posters, Propaganda, and Persuasion in Election Campaigns Around the World and Through History.

Sebastián Piñera, a conservative billionaire, won Chile's presidential election in a runoff yesterday. It was the first victory for a conservative in more than 50 years. Early returns showed Piñera defeating former president Eduardo Frei, a Christian Democrat, by a 4% margin, according to BBC News.

Piñera's platform included investment incentives, lowering taxes on small businesses, job creation, law-and-order policies, and steamlining government.

World Audit now ranks Chile the 21st most "democratic" country in the world (with 36 considered "fully democratic"), two decades after the military rule of Augusto Pinochet Ugarte (1973-1990) ended.

Political parties in Chile use posters more than those in many other countries, since they are allocated limited time on public television and not even allowed to purchase commercial broadcast time.

To learn more about election campaigns and poster propaganda in Chile and other countries in Latin America, see my book, Posters, Propaganda, and Persuasion in Election Campaigns Around the World and Through History.

Many have decried the "presidentialization," "Americanization," and infusion of marketing into British politics, although these trends have been apparent for quite a few years now.

The latest barrage of criticism is directed at Conservative leader David Cameron's "presidential-style" election billboard/poster campaign, in anticipation of the upcoming elections in the United Kingdom. Many dislike the poster's focus on only Cameron, with senior Conservative leaders such as George Osborne and William Hague ignored. Even the party's logo is missing. This is not America, after all!

While it is true that, because its political system is parliamentary, there is more emphasis on parties than there is in the United States, Great Britain’s campaigns became “presidential”—in many ways—in the 1990s. This “presidentialization” was stimulated, in part, by the concentration of broadcast and newspaper reporting on party leaders; decisions by the parties themselves to focus attention on these men and women as message deliverers also factored. Even earlier, in 1987, the Labour Party brought in American political consultant Joseph Napolitan. In the 1980s, the Labour Party (seeing how political marketing techniques had proven to be successful for the Conservatives) began to move away from its reluctance to employ “modern” strategic political advertising and promotional methods and began to embrace them. This transition accelerated in the early 1990s, under Tony Blair’s leadership. The “Americanization” (i.e., more emphasis on personality and image, simplification of problems to a few emphasized issues, targeting of voters, and negative and/or emotional messages) of the campaigns conducted by the Labour Party was manifest in the inclusion, on posters, of photographs of Blair.

The Cameron billboard has also been attacked because of the obvious airbrushing and manipulation of the Tory leader's image, including his nose being slimmed down, his hair increased, and, according to Didi Danso (the Mirror's Fashion Editor), "he has pouting lips Keira Knightley would be jealous of." Of course, this "image enhancement" has occurred before. In 1929, British Conservative leader Stanley Baldwin was featured on a poster, with him appearing quite handsome, even though one contemporary reporter, Ernest Marshall, wrote that although “Baldwin has been described as the homeliest man in a conspicuous position in British politics, … [his] facial lineaments are now displayed on posters all over the country as an attractive appeal to the voters, … [with his] features … rounded out almost to John Bullish fullness.”

The accompanying slogan in the Cameron billboard/poster is a negative one (as so many have been in the contentious election campaigns in Britain): "We can't go on like this. I'll cut the deficit, not the NHS." Cutting spending and not health services? Does this sound familar to U.S. voters?

According to the Mirror, over 700 of these billboards—at a cost of £500,000—have already been put up.

To learn more about the use of posters and billboards in British politics, as well as British political history and the influence of advertising and marketing, see my book, Posters, Propaganda, and Persuasion in Election Campaigns Around the World and Through History.