There is often an unexamined assumption when people are talking about politics in different countries, along the lines that there's a neat political spectrum you can apply everywhere, a bit like an exchange rate converter for different currencies. But often that just isn't true. The popular concerns which drive and shape politics are just too different.

The very same policies that are seen as defining marks of being on the right or the left will typically be mixed up in a totally different way. What's seen as right wing in one place will be seen as left wing in another, and parties and regimes will have their own peculiar mix of the two.

Moreover the significant differences often aren't on the left-right spectrum at all, but in a completely independent authoritarian-libertarian spectrum - which graphically would need to be plotted at right angles.

And on top of that, of course, there are differences in the way words are used. Most especially for a word like "liberal" which in some places can be used by parties at virtually any point on either of those spectra.