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Viktor Orbán is one of the longest-serving prime ministers in the history of Hungary. After three terms in office, he still enjoys widespread support. Illiberal policies, corruption allegations and the close ties with Russia doesn’t seem to affect Orbán’s odds to secure a fourth mandate of prime minister.
After 12 years in office, Orban and Fidesz still enjoy widespread support
A recent survey carried out ahead of the April 3 election reveals the ruling coalition made up of Fidesz and the Christian Democratic People’s Party (KDNP) has a slight lead, with 39% of voters’ choice compared to 36% secured by the opposition bloc, according to Závecz Research. To win, Fidesz-KDNP would need to swing the vote of around 100 to 150 thousand undecided voters, whereas the opposition counts on some 200 to 250 thousand.
Another survey puts Fidesz ahead by 2 percent (41% vs. 39%), while the number of undecided voters is estimated to stand at 6%. In the case of hardline voters, the gap is even wider, 50% for Fidesz and 45% for the opposition (Idea).
The breakdown of MP seats also reveals a clear advantage for Fidesz, who would secure 128 seats compared to the opposition’s 71, in the event of a high voter turnout, 80% (Medián). Data also points to large gaps between urban and rural areas. In large cities, 45% of voters favor the opposition, whereas only 27% would vote for the government. In rural areas, the balance is reversed – the government would actually grab 50% of the vote compared to the opposition’s 26%. One can notice that, after 12 years, the approval ratings of Fidesz and Orbán have remained high enough to allow them to win another round of election. How did they achieve that?
Viktor Orbán’s illiberal democracy and European funds
8 years ago, Orbán gave a speech that would significantly impact the attitude of the international community towards him. Paradoxically, the speech was held not in Hungary, but in Tușnad, Romania. It was here that he launched his vision of an illiberal society. To Orbán’s mind, the West has lost its ability to compete and is fighting to free itself from the trap of liberalism. It is unclear whether the West is ineffective due to its liberalism, or that it turned liberal due to its ineffectiveness. At any rate, the West’s glory days are gone and now (i.e. 2014) the world is preoccupied with understanding systems that “are not liberal, are not liberal democracies, maybe not even democracies per se, but which nevertheless guarantee the success of a nation. Today, the stars of international analyses are Singapore, China, India, Russia, Turkey”. Without going into details as to what makes these countries so successful, Orbán said: “a democracy is not necessarily liberal. Just because something is not liberal, it still can be a democracy.”
Western countries with a long liberal tradition – where right-wing and left-wing ideologies and their extremist variations can co-exist in relative peace – were left in awe, without being able to follow the rest of the speech. But the interesting part was yet to come. Orbán further noted that people – several hundreds of them – who administered European funds for economic and social development received their salaries directly from the European Union. More specifically, the distribution of these funds was decided by “people who were paid by other people, and received a multiple of what Hungarian administration employees would receive for that job.” Consequently, the Hungarian government decided that “whoever decides on these EU funds in the new illiberal state conception has to be employed by the Hungarian state”. Therefore, according to Orbán, people on the EU’s payroll were overly paid for their jobs, which is why they had to be replaced by employees of the Hungarian state, who earned substantially less. Exactly what the Hungarian state would gain by paying its employees from the state budget instead of EU funds and how these employees would fare better in the newly created circumstances remained unclear from the Hungarian Prime Minister’s speech.
Lőrinc Mészáros, the plumber who helped Viktor Orbán take over the media
It was also around this time that Lőrinc Mészáros, a gas fitter from Orbán’s native village, was elected village mayor. He became an entrepreneur, accumulating a massive wealth. His company holding continues to grow, and so does the value of public tenders Mészáros wins one after the other. Not too long ago, Mészáros was declared the richest man in Hungary, making generous use of his assets to the benefit to Fidesz. His companies virtually bought every media outlet in Hungary they could get their hands on: news TV stations, radio stations and regional newspapers. Once the tenders were closed, Mészáros signed everything off to a foundation under Fidesz’s control in 2018. Since then, all these media outlets, together with public radio and TV stations that are funded from the state budget, are only publishing news, articles and narratives favoring the government or badmouthing the opposition.
Controlling the media was an important goal for Orbán, which he announced many years before, and he actually succeeded. Not entirely, since the independent media still survives online, but the prime minister has attained his original objective: total monopoly over communication in rural areas, especially in villages. Apart from that, the prime minister is posting a lot on Facebook. His public speeches are always well-structured and address a carefully selected audience. Orbán never risks taking an interview that might be critical of him. And to run full circle, he never attends electoral debates.
These debates and interviews would certainly tackle the issue of public tenders, where contracts have been constantly awarded to a select group of entrepreneurs. Within the space of a single year, over April 2020 – April 2021, 6 companies won government contracts with a total worth of 800 billion HUF, tantamount to some 2 billion Euro. Of the 6 companies, 3 were directly or indirectly owned by Lőrinc Mészáros’s family business. Another figure from Orbán’s inner circle who amassed a colossal fortune is his son-in-law, István Tiborcz, whose business benefits from generous allocations from the state budget. Piling up private fortunes from public sources has become a systemic process in Hungary.
How Orbán consolidated his grip on power: he appointed his cronies in key institutions and conjured external enemies
At this point, Romanian readers might wonder exactly how Orbán managed to stay in power for 12 long years under these circumstances, standing very good chances of staying in office for the next 4 years as well. There are more ways than one to answer this question.
These 12 years, Orbán has systematically dismantled checks and balances, sitting on a comfortable majority of two thirds of MPs. All the high-profile positions were voted by Fidesz-KDNP deputies, including the prosecutor general, and approved for a period of 9 years. The same applies to the head of the audiovisual authority, which is supposed to be the watchdog of media freedom and put a stop to government propaganda. Neither the prosecutor’s office, nor the audiovisual authority had anything to report in the last 12 years, whereas the country’s president, János Áder, who knows Orbán from their university years together, has signed into law most bills tabled and voted by the Fidesz parliament majority, and has so far turned back none of the draft laws submitted by the government. Finally, the government’s messages disseminated via state-controlled media were carefully designed so as to divert public attention from high-profile corruption investigations.
The messages take the form of campaigns targeting public enemies. These enemies are for some reason always remote, hard to identify and somewhat obscure. They have to be associated with a mix of threats as much as possible. Here are a few examples:
- Immigrants who come from the Middle East, of difficult cultures and religions. If we don’t fight migrants, they will take away our culture, our jobs and customs;
- George Soros, who in the name of an open society wants to bring large numbers of immigrants to Hungary (without specifying what Soros would have to gain from this move);
- Not the European Commission, not the European Parliament, not the Council of the European Union, nor any other particular European institution. Brussels as a whole. Over 2015-2016, Orbán opposed Brussels for forcing member states to take in immigrants, under pressure from Soros, seen as enjoying the favor of European institutions and actually pursuing a specific agenda. Meanwhile, the issue of migration has lost its relevance, and today Brussels is accused of wanting to force Hungary and other countries to embrace gender transitioning and “homosexual propaganda” as a whole, and even teach it to school children.
These topics are disseminated on a systematic basis, every day, to the detriment of all other stories. Every time, Viktor Orbán is depicted as the leader who is relentless in his fight against these threats. There are, however, times when the carefully construed propaganda hits a snag.
Orbán’s bet on Russia: was it a mistake?
Prior to 2010, Orbán spoke of another threat – that of Russian expansion. In 2008, referring to the Russian invasion of Georgia, he said: “I am confident it is the duty of Central-European nations to speak up in no uncertain terms whenever an independent country is subjected to military aggression. It is an even higher obligation for us Hungarians, who’ve had the experience of 1956. For this reason, when an independent country is attacked by the Russians by means of a military aggression, we need to make a clear and direct statement, by adopting the morally just position.”
Back then, Orbán was not in the least concerned that this clear stand could possibly affect the country’s Russian gas supplies. Around the same time, the Fidesz youth organization staged a rally in front of the Russian Embassy in Budapest, with Péter Szijjártó stating: “if an independent state is attacked, then there’s a possibility Moscow might just as brutally express its discontentment if the next Ukrainian, Slovakian, Lithuanian and even Hungarian Prime Minister that gets elected doesn’t play well into its agenda”. Last year, the same Szijjártó received a high state honor from Sergey Lavrov, which he proudly boasted about in a Facebook post.
Starting 2010, all these moral considerations were replaced with an unconditional rapprochement with Russia and president Vladimir Putin, also underlined by numerous mutual visits to the two capital cities. The last was on February 1 in Moscow, when Orbán returned triumphantly and was portrayed by the media as a messenger of peace. Three weeks later, Russia launched the invasion of Ukraine, leaving Orbán clearly confused. Not just about their dialogue, but also about their political relation. Orbán, who for years had systematically opposed sanctions against Russia, then decided to align himself to the European sanctions regime, however without naming Russia an aggressor.
The last 12 years therefore lie in the balance in this Sunday’s election. According to opinion polls, Orbán will likely win, but the fate of the election is ultimately decided by the undecided. If any of things we discussed make any difference, we will find out on Monday.
