Hungary’s nationalist leader Viktor Orban wins fourth term as prime minister

Europe, News April 4, 2022 , by IRIA No Comments

Hungary’s right-wing politician and Putin’s closest ally in the EU, Viktor Orban, won the Prime Minister’s elections for the fourth consecutive term on April 3, 2022.

Orban’s Fidesz Party won 135 seats in the 199-member parliament, claiming about 86% majority and crushing the newly formed six-party opposition alliance named United for Hungary. The United of Hungary opposition alliance could only win 54 seats.

Soon after unofficial results started to come out, Orban came out to address an ecstatic crowd of supporters outside his elections headquarters at the bank of the Danube River in Budapest.

The elections campaign in Hungary was dominated by the Russia-Ukraine war and its implications on the country. Orban is known for his close association with Russian President Vladimir Putin. During his elections campaign, he repeatedly took a critical stance against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and during his winning speech after election day he termed Zelenskyy as one of his ‘opponents’ that he had to overcome during the elections.

Hungary is heavily reliant on Russian oil and gas. Unlike other EU leaders, Orban has always dodged the opportunity to criticize Putin for his invasion of Ukraine. This has resulted in complicating the EU’s unanimous stance against Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Viktor Orbán on his victory in the parliamentary election and expressed hopes that “despite the difficult international situation, the further development of bilateral partnerships fully meets the interests of the peoples of Russia and Hungary,” Russia’s Tass news agency reported.

^{Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban during a meeting in Budapest, Hungary, on October 30, 2019. (Image Credit: Alexei Nikolskiy/Russian Presidential press service/TASS)}

During his victory speech, Orban also said that he did not only had to fight against the national opposition but also opponents from outside, referring to President Zelenskyy, European Union bureaucrats, and international media.

“We will remember this victory until the end of our lives because we had to fight against a huge amount of opponents, and the Ukrainian president too, we never had so many opponents at the same time,” Orban said.

Only a few days before elections on March 30, Hungary’s Foreign Minister accused the Ukrainian government of coordinating with the opposition parties to malign their lead.

The opposition leader Peter Marki-Zay, however, rejected the allegations and stated that “Putin is rebuilding the Soviet empire and Orban is just watching it with strategic calm.”

After losing the elections to Fidesz’s huge majority, Marki-Zay stated that “We don’t debate the victory of Fidesz, but we debate that whether this election was democratic and even. We will stay in this country, stand up for each other, hold hands and won’t let each other go. Hard times are coming, regardless of the election results. We know that they will blame us, we will be the scapegoats, so it’s more important than ever to hold each other’s hand and not let go.”

With an evident two-thirds majority in the parliament, Fidesz Party now holds the ability to completely reshape Hungarian politics without any support or alliance from other political parties.