Harper commends Hungary’s populist PM

Congratulations on Orban’s re-election spark controversy

OTTAWA — Former prime minister Stephen Harper has raised eyebrows with his public congratulations to Viktor Orban for his re-election as prime minister of Hungary.

In a message on Twitter late Monday, Harper congratulated Orban — whose election platform demonized migrants and asylum seekers in Europe as a security threat — for winning “a decisive fourth term” for his Fidesz party, which now holds a two-thirds majority in Hungary’s national legislature.

In February, Harper was unanimously elected chairman of the International Democratic Union (IDU), a centre-right organization made up of more than 80 conservative political parties worldwide, including Orban’s Fidesz.

“Congratulations to Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Hungary’s Fidesz for winning a decisive fourth term! The IDU and I are looking forward to working with you,” Harper tweeted.

The post prompted some Twitter users to decry Orban’s right-wing, populist political ideology and controversial political policies.

Pollster Frank Graves, president of Ekos Research Associates, said he was so surprised by the former Conservative prime minister’s tweet, he thought Harper’s account had been hacked.

“Mr. Harper is a pretty shrewd character and I thought it, frankly, showed a lack of judgment on his part,” Graves said Tuesday in an interview.

“There’s a lot of deep skepticism about Mr. Orban and particularly his policies such that I would have thought this would be an area where you would want to give a pass.”

The former prime minister did not respond directly to requests for comment, but Rachel Curran, a senior associate at Harper’s consulting company, Harper & Associates, said the tweet was simply a standard communication about the activity of a member party.

“He’s not pronouncing on the merits of Mr. Orban’s government or his political campaign, he’s simply congratulating him as a successful member of the IDU who recently received a massive democratic mandate from Hungarians,” Curran said.

Some people have been using the tweet to “get a shot at Mr. Harper,” she added.

Liberal MP Marco Mendicino, parliamentary secretary for justice, called on Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer and Conservative MP Tony Clement to denounce Harper’s congratulatory message to Orban.

Clement is vice-chairman of the IDU and Scheer has close personal ties with Harper, Mendicino said.

“It’s time for Mr. Scheer and Mr. Clement and others in the party to and say: ‘We don’t support the kind of heavy-handedness that we see in Mr. Orban.’ ”