Hungarian Politics

[Tamas]

America is now a great friend and I am guessing Brussels is a boring villain, so as the latest effort to gain the initiative, Fidesz has started blaming Ukraine for financing efforts to "discredit the government". In the narrative they are building, Ukraine is spending a lot of money and effort to make sure the "pro-peace" Hungarian government falls  so the war can continue.

[Valmy]

America is now a great friend and I am guessing Brussels is a boring villain, so as the latest effort to gain the initiative, Fidesz has started blaming Ukraine for financing efforts to "discredit the government". In the narrative they are building, Ukraine is spending a lot of money and effort to make sure the "pro-peace" Hungarian government falls  so the war can continue.

The war has continued pretty well with the pro-peace Hungarian Government in power.

[Tamas]

America is now a great friend and I am guessing Brussels is a boring villain, so as the latest effort to gain the initiative, Fidesz has started blaming Ukraine for financing efforts to "discredit the government". In the narrative they are building, Ukraine is spending a lot of money and effort to make sure the "pro-peace" Hungarian government falls  so the war can continue.

The war has continued pretty well with the pro-peace Hungarian Government in power.

I think the "logics" there is that was because of the pro-War American government. Now that pro-peace grandiose glorious Trump is in power, that's been firmly resolved, with the pro-peace American government threatening pro-peace sanctions on Russia, as opposed to the pro-war sanctions by the EU (I kid you not, Orban used this explanation).

[Valmy]

That is kind of impressive nonsense. Like I can imagine a board room where his marketing people are pitching him different bullshit explanations as to why who runs the government in Hungary matters much in the Ukraine War.

[Syt]

Seems a couple of people are taking to the streets.

[Tamas]

And they went home. It's a big national holiday so the opposition messiah, Magyar, had a big event.

But he is sounding and looking more and more like an internal Fidesz takeover, in practice.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

And they went home. It's a big national holiday so the opposition messiah, Magyar, had a big event.

But he is sounding and looking more and more like an internal Fidesz takeover, in practice.

so also licking putin his boots?

[The Minsky Moment]

Wow things are looking pretty bad in Hungary.  If it gets any worse, it might end up like the United States.

[Tamas]

And they went home. It's a big national holiday so the opposition messiah, Magyar, had a big event.

But he is sounding and looking more and more like an internal Fidesz takeover, in practice.

so also licking putin his boots?

That's unknown. The last opposition leader, elected on a sort of primaries was destroyed by an unfortunate sentence in an interview where he said he would send soldier to Ukraine if nato moved in. Fidesz made that into a soundbite to prove he was hell-bent on war.

So Magyar is very careful not to comment on the war either way.

But his recent signing to his party leadership is a former head of the army under Fidesz, hwom I remember to be rather pro-Russian.

[Valmy]

If the party in power has to approve of you in order to win, I don't like your chances.

It's funny how little soundbites destroy Orban's opposition every time, while he can just say whatever insane evil shit he wants.

But we have the same problem over here. One of the justifications for the Senate Democrats great surrender is that they were afraid Trump and the right wing people were going to say mean things about them and blame the shutdown on them. As if they won't be constantly saying mean things about them and blaming them for everything anyway.

[Syt]

There's a reason why the GOP were keenly studying Orban"s "success"

[Tamas]

So I think thing shit is bound to happen next year the latest, in a democratic system Fidesz's collapse of momentum and eventual loss would be guaranteed at this stage, I think. Long post but you might want to read it for some context for what's ahead.

Peter Magyar (I should say the Tisza Party but I bet even his supporters would struggle to name more than two other people in the party) continues to increase in polls, I think based on some polls even an absolute majority is in the cards. That's because Fidesz introduced a system where the strongest party of an election gets "compensated" with further seats in Parliament. Magyar has already said, rightly, that one confirmation of their success will be if Fidesz decides to remove that from the election law.

The panic and grasping at straws on Fidesz' end is clear. They are desperate for a gotcha! moment. One of the MEPs of Magyar's party was recorded on some commission meeting saying the (unfortunate) thing that yes because the stopping of EU grants is causing problems to the government and country, it is good for the opposition.

Fidesz went overdrive on this one, calling the Tisza Party traitors and even Orban on his weekly radio "interview" demanding that they withdraw from public life and saying that they (the EU and Magyar) want to destroy the economy and hospitals and education so that Magyar's party wins the election. This culminated not only on a ridiculously under-attended demonstration, but in things like the Health Secretary (remember state secretaries are below ministers in Hungary, there's no Health Ministry in Hungary anymore) showing on social media the terrible state of hospital buildings in the country as in "look what this 10-month old political party has done to our country" - this is from a party who have been in government with absolute majorities for 15 years. 

So, I think Orban has pretty much exhausted his "democratic" options to curtail Magyar's rise. Just nothing sticks. The economy is messed up, people have had enough and in Magyar they can get a change without compromising the whole nationalistic ethos thing that Fidesz instilled in them. And Magyar also avoid traps made to detach nationalistic pricks from his group, like the curtailing of public gatherings, officially aimed at Budapest Pride (but no doubt useful for everything that's ahead).

So, as a couple of analysts are already saying: the big question is, will Orban try to prevent Magyar from running in next year's election, like Erdogan did with his rival?

Already they tried to have a criminal case stick on him (somebody heckled him into Magyar taking their phone and throwing it into the Danube) but by that time he was a MEP and he smartly wouldn't relinquish the immunity coming with that.

That's the biggest hurdle in front of Orban: how is he supposed to arrest a member of the European Parliament? Well, I am not sure how far it has gotten but they did talk about a bill that would allow banning people from being MEPs under certain circumstances (criminal charge or something, can't recall the details). According to journalists, who can and cannot be a MEP is left to the member states to decide for themselves, so in theory Orban could change the laws, heck the constitution if he needs to, to get the legal right of removing Magyar from the EP and then have him arrested.

[Neil]

Would the EU's reaction to Hungary completely sliding into a non-democracy be completely toothless and performative, or has the collapse of the United States convinced them to take things a little more seriously?

[HVC]

Would the EU's reaction to Hungary completely sliding into a non-democracy be completely toothless and performative, or has the collapse of the United States convinced them to take things a little more seriously?

I've asked before and was told they can't kick Hungary out of the EU let alone NATO. Which seems very short sighted. Kind of understand the nato thing, don't want to be able to jettison someone just before Russia attacks.