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. (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.
There has been ample evidence compiled during the past two-three years that during his first term in office, Mr Orban has build himself a so-called maffia state, designed to feather his own nest and those of a handful of oligarchs. The level of governmental corruption according to the independent Transparency International, has not decreased but increased under his watch. According to the European Committee, Hungarians experienced the single largest tax burden increase of all EU members after he came into power. Income inequalities have not decreased but increased, during the past 4 years in Hungary. The gap in economic development between Hungary and her neighbours didn’t decrease but increase under his stewardship. The national debt, which he sought to wrestle to the ground is higher now, than when he took over. Under his leadership, Hungary experienced the largest mass exodus of people since the end of WWII. (over 500,000 have left during the past 4 years). The Jewish Defense League has documented evidence, that under his term in office, Hungary, among all the EU nations, experienced the largest jump in publicly recorded anti-Semitic rhetoric. Recent surveys of young people in Hungary indicate, that more than 50% would like to leave the country and find their happiness and career outside of Hungary. And then, there is the havoc he reaped on the fragile body of Hungary’s young and fragile democracy. The Orban government is expending vasts sums of money on propaganda, especially in North America, to cover up the record of plunder, to paint a picture of Hungary, that is full of achievement and merit. His actions at home tell a different story. His latest announcement – to cut off liberal democracy at the knees, and to follow the path of such “success stories” as Putin’s Russia, or China, by building what he terms an “illiberal democracy” should be a wake up call for the European Union. By her leader’s own admission, Hungary is a Trojan Horse within the community of democratic nations. His ideal of governance is not that which the community of North Atlantic nations subscribe to but that which the self-serving oligarchs in Russia and China prefer.