Hungary has gone through two national election campaigns (2010 and 2014), in which Prime Minister Viktor Orbán refused to engage his opponents in televised debates. Ever since performing poorly against then Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány in the 2006 election debate (an election that Mr. Orbán lost to the Hungarian Socialist Party – Alliance of Free Democrats coalition), Mr. Orbán has avoided […]
This morning, a friend from Budapest sent me a digital copy of a print newspaper entitled Lokál, distributed free of charge at metro stations, train stations, public places in Hungary and also delivered to private homes. Lokál was established in 2015 by Árpád Habony, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s strategic adviser, and the print daily has a national circulation of 1.16 million […]
Gergely Karácsony, the Hungarian Socialist Party’s candidate for prime minister answered questions at Budapest’s venerable Spinóza Ház, a generally liberal-minded club, theatre and coffee house which has welcomed politicians from across the spectrum to sit down with journalist Katalin Rangos. Mr. Karácsony answered questions on a broad range of topics ahead of the April 2018 national elections, but none elicited […]
There is no doubt that Jobbik, once a party of the far-right, now appears to be a more palatable choice for moderate conservatives than Fidesz, which today occupies the extreme right in both its rhetoric and policy. Whether the rejection of the far right represents a genuine change of heart on the part of Jobbik or merely a cynical move […]
Former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány was a guest on ATV’s Egyenes Beszéd (Straight Talk) evening news program. The host, Egon Rónai, asked the leader of the Democratic Coalition: did he feel vindicated that after months of László Botka calling on him to step back from the front-line of politics, it was he who was was ultimately left standing? Would Mr. […]
Hungary’s ruling regime, which passed a probably unconstitutional law restricting Jobbik and all other parties from buying advertisements on billboards at discounted prices, begins the weekend with a rude awakening. If the opposition party is no longer allowed to purchase advertising space at below market rates, why not just buy the physical billboard altogether, through an advantageous financing agreement with […]
Despite three days of government-propagated hysteria and accusations surrounding the visit of nine inspectors from the European Parliament to examine how EU funds have been spent in Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán can rest easy. The inspectors confirmed that from the perspective of how EU funds were spent on a vintage train, a project that has been the target of […]
Gábor Vona, leader of Hungary’s Jobbik party, is calling on Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government to issue a formal apology to the Roma minority. He accuses the ruling Fidesz party of deliberately eliminating any possibility for upward social mobility within the country’s largest minority group. Speaking in the town of Eger, a few days after he confirmed in a television […]
Ripost.hu is one of Hungary’s bottom of the barrel political tabloids: an online publication that specializes in seedy, politically motivated character assassinations against opponents of Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party. Ripost is the publication that took a photograph completely out of context, in order to insinuate that Jobbik leader Gábor is a homosexual and participates in gay orgies. Earlier this spring, […]
Ildikó Lendvai, the former Chairperson of the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) and Member of Parliament for twenty years (1994-2014), has been critical of her liberal and left-centre colleagues who believe that the only way to topple the authoritarian Orbán regime is to enter into a partnership with the once far-right, but now more moderate Jobbik party ahead of the 2018 […]
