Hungary celebrates this Sunday legislative elections, the first in twelve years that threaten to oust the ultra-conservative Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, from power, who has won the last three elections comfortably and has governed with an absolute majority in Parliament. On this occasion, Orbán, a controversial politician and always unruly with Brussels, faces an unusual coalition made up of all the parliamentary opposition parties, from the left to the extreme right.
How long has Orbán been in power?
The Hungarian Prime Minister formed a government for the first time after winning the 1998 elections. discontent of a disappointed population for the first years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Orbán’s plan, then moderate, was to lead Hungary into the European Union, but his project was cut short after he unexpectedly lost the 2002 elections, which the Socialists won. Orbán lost again four years later and it was not until 2010 when he again managed to rise to power, and in a big way, with a two-thirds majority in Parliament. Since then he has led the country in the face of very weak opposition.
When did you turn your moderate speech towards the extreme right?
Orbán and the party he founded and leads, Fidesz, have evolved over time towards populist approaches typical of the radical right. The big turn was consolidated in 2014 when the ultra-Hungarian Jobbik party began to assume prominence, which in the elections held that year obtained 20% of the votes, becoming the third parliamentary force and the second in popularity.
Orbán took advantage of the refugee crisis of 2015 to assume more strongly the anti-immigration, xenophobic and ultra-nationalist discourse of the Hungarian radicals, with the purpose of recovering the part of the electorate that Jobbik had taken from him. The strategy was completely successful.. The government in Budapest strongly opposed the EU’s quota policy for hosting refugees. “We will never allow Hungary to become a target country for immigrants. We do not want minorities with different cultures and backgrounds from each other,” the prime minister said at the time. That year, Orbán announced the construction of a barrier 175 kilometers long and four high with the southern border with Serbia and another 40 kilometers with Croatia, an idea “stolen” from Jobbik.In the following months, his party regained up to a million followers, according to polls.
What options do you have to renew your mandate in the elections this Sunday?
For the first time since 2010, Orbán sees clearly endanger their electoral hegemony. In these elections he is facing an unusual coalition made up of all the parliamentary opposition parties, from the left to the extreme right, called United for Hungary. The electoral alliance, which supports a single candidate for the head of the Government, the conservative Péter Márki-Zay, is made up of the Socialist Party, the liberal Momentum, the environmentalist LMP, the far-right Jobbik and the left-wing Dialogue and Democratic Coalition parties. . The polls indicate a tight result.
What has been the relationship you have had with the European Union?
Orbán’s government has been characterized as one of the most fractious with Brussels, along with the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia, which form the so-called Visegrad group. During this election campaign, the prime minister accused Brussels of launching a “holy war, a jihad” against Hungary in the name of the rule of law. At the same rally, Orbán threatened to take his country out of the EU. “He will not be able to impose his will on Hungary”, he has said on several occasions during his successive mandates, which thanks to his absolute majorities have been characterized by high doses of authoritarianism.
Brussels, for its part, has accused him of violating the values and norms of the EU. The Hungarian leader has promoted a constitutional reform, based on the most conservative Christian values, and a new electoral law that favors what it calls “conservative revolution” and “illiberal democracy.” Orbán’s laws limit abortion and exalt homophobia. A law passed last year bans talking about homosexuality in schools and on children’s television and radio shows. His increasingly ultraconservative and radical drift has distanced him from the European People’s Party (EPP), of which the PP is a member. Fidesz left the group in March of last year.
What has been Orbán’s position in the Ukraine war?
Orbán’s Hungary is one of the European countries with the closest ties to Vladimir Putin’s Russia. During his long tenure he announced the opening of his country towards the east, towards Russia and China. The first Minister censored the sanctions imposed by Brussels on Moscow after the annexation of the Crimean peninsula. Budapest has been one of the last European capitals to condemn the invasion of Ukraine and has since adopted a position of neutrality. In fact, it has prohibited the passage of NATO weapons for Ukraine through its territory.