Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban expressed concern on Thursday about the “evil gnawing at Western democracies” following the decision not to challenge Donald Trump for the presidency in the United States and the state's media management team in Poland was dismissed.
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“We are seeing strange things today, say in the democratic Western world,” the nationalist leader said during his annual news conference in Budapest.
“We have to be careful because there is a major Western democracy where, if I understand correctly, they want to block a presidential candidate by putting legal obstacles in his way,” he said, referring to his ally Trump .
The Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday declared the former Republican official unfit for the presidency because of his actions during the attack on the Capitol, sending shockwaves through the tumultuous American presidential campaign.
“I see another equally important country where a party with significant parliamentary representation is under scrutiny,” Mr. Orban continued, visibly referring to the far-right German AfD party.
“And I see a third country where the police takeover of television happened.”
He was asked about the new Polish government's firing of state media chiefs, widely seen as offshoots of the former executive who was very close to Viktor Orban.
“An evil is corroding the organization of Western democracies,” said the Hungarian Prime Minister. Previously ironic: “If this had all happened in Hungary, NATO troops might have already intervened, which also raises the problem of double standards.”
Viktor Orban, who has been in power continuously since 2010, is regularly criticized by Brussels and international organizations for his authoritarian tendencies. In addition, the Commission has frozen 21 billion euros in funds intended for Hungary due to the rule of law situation.
In September 2022, the European Parliament estimated that this Central European country was no longer a true democracy but a “hybrid regime of electoral autocracy,” while countervailing powers were gradually being aligned.
Several independent Hungarian media outlets were excluded from the press conference.