Orbán envisions authoritarian state and unchecked powers

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor is seeking to build a political system that would ensure that he has unchecked powers, according to László Majtényi, the country’s former ombudsman and privacy commissioner. Mr. Majtényi noted that Mr. Orbán’s speach in Tusnádfürdő (Băile Tușnad), Romania, made it official that Hungary’s authoritarian prime minister no longer sees the regime change of 1989/90 and the development of a liberal democracy in Hungary as a governance structure worth preserving.

Viktor Orbán in Tusnádfürdő, Romania.

Viktor Orbán in Tusnádfürdő, Romania. (Photo: Facebook.)

“We are not arguing with the Prime Minister’s notion that for the past several years, Hungary’s legal system can no longer be characterized as a liberal democracy. After all, this is precisely what his critics have been voicing for some time. Yet Mr. Orbán’s other claims in Tusnádfürdő are easy to refute, as these are lies that simply serve his political objectives. The European Union was established by liberal democracies, the EU only accepts as members countries  those that are constitutional democracies and as such, it is required that member states respect the core principles of liberal constitutionalism,” remarked Mr. Majtényi during a talk given at the Károly Eötvös Institute in Budapest.

“Among the developed societies in the world, each embraces one form or another of liberal democracy. And based on historical precedent, the world’s developing autocracies will eventually have to choose between democratization or stagnation,” added the former ombudsman.

Mr. Majtényi observed that there is absolutely no empirical evidence to suggest that a majority of the Hungarian public was searching for an alternative to liberal democracy. In 2010, when Mr. Orbán won his first supermajority, he concealed his aim of building an authoritarian, oligarchic state, modeled off of Central Asian countries or Vladimir Putin’s Russia. And even in April 2014, only a minority of the electorate voted for the continuation of the current political course, while much of the population remained completely disengaged from public affairs, added the ex-ombudsman.

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