Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban leaves the stage after delivering his annual state of the nation address in Budapest, Hungary February 10, 2019. REUTERS/Bernadett Szabo/File Photo
BUDAPEST – After his third straight landslide victory in 2018, Hungary’s Viktor Orban said his strong new mandate allows him to plan 12 years ahead and aim for an uninterrupted two-decade takeover of power in the former-communist central European country.
On Sunday, Orban’s plan will be put to the test in a national election where polls show six opposition parties, which have allied against him for the first time, are on the verge of toppling his nationalist Fidesz party.
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Fidesz won the 2018 election with a fierce anti-immigration campaign that earned him praise from former US President Donald Trump and Europe’s far right, and put him on a collision course with Brussels.
Now the 58-year-old leader, who has turned Hungary into a self-proclaimed “illiberal democracy” with a firm grip on the media and loyalists in charge of top institutions, concedes this election will not be a piece of cake.
“The stakes in this election are far greater than I could have imagined, even for an old warhorse like me,” said Orban, who has balanced time in opposition and power since post-communist Hungary’s first elections in 1990 divided. told the pro-government broadcaster HirTV on Monday.
Opinion polls give Orban’s party a slim lead, but with about a fifth of Hungary’s 8 million voters still undecided, the April 3 vote could still go either way.
The vote will determine whether Brussels will continue to face opposition from Hungary and Poland over media freedoms, the rule of law and minority rights, or whether Warsaw will remain isolated in its standoff with European institutions.
Defending conservative Christian family values against what he calls “gender madness” now sweeping Western Europe is part of Orban’s current campaign. On Sunday, Hungarians will also vote in a government referendum on sexual orientation workshops in schools, a vote that rights groups have condemned and say it fuels prejudice against the LGBTQ community. Continue reading
Orban leads before the election
EAST OR WEST?
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine messed up Orban’s script and cast a new light on his close ties with Moscow.
He responded by tapping into Hungarians’ desire for security, posing as their protector on election posters and accusing opposition politicians of dragging Hungary to war, a charge they denied.
But opposition leader Peter Marki-Zay seized the opportunity, telling voters they were faced with a choice between West and East, criticizing Orban’s close ties with Russia and what he called the erosion of democratic rights.
Marki-Zay, campaigning in the former Moscow Square in Budapest, an opposition stronghold, said on Tuesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin is rebuilding the Soviet empire and Orban “still can’t decide how to maintain the same distance from the killers and the victims.”
The conservative small-town mayor and Catholic father of seven spoke to cheering supporters about the Hungarian uprising that was crushed by Soviet tanks almost 66 years ago when it attacked Orban.
“After 1956 there is still one Hungarian politician who cannot say that we must always stand against the aggressor,” he said.
Marki-Zay leads a coalition of six parties from across Hungary’s political spectrum, which have joined forces fueled by the possibility of ousting Orban.
Its members, from the left-wing Democratic Coalition to Liberal Momentum to Jobbik, a far-right party that has turned moderate, have put most of their disputes aside for the campaign, but political differences could pose a challenge if Marki-Zay am Sunday wins.
He has promised to crack down on corruption, gain access to European Union funds frozen by Brussels over the rule of law fight and introduce the euro.
“What this election will decide is that the majority of these 12 years have had enough,” said Sandor Laszlo, who attended Marki-Zay’s rally in the capital.
According to the latest Zavecz Research poll, Fidesz, with 39% support, led the opposition by three percentage points. Tibor Zavecz, director of the think tank, said Fidesz appears to have a better chance of winning, but much depends on a last-minute voter mobilization.
He said around 8% of voters, around 600,000 people, said they would cast a vote but still had no preferred choice.
Reporting by Krisztina Than Editing by Tomasz Janowski