Hungarian PM could target Soros organizations
Results show Orban’s party winning 133 of 199 seats • Netanyahu congratulates him
BUDAPEST (Reuters) – Prime Minister Viktor Orban could use his sweeping new political mandate to extend Hungary’s crackdown on civil organizations that have been critical of his anti-immigration policies.
The right-wing nationalist projected himself as a savior of Hungary’s Christian culture against Muslim migration into Europe, an image that resonated with over 2.5 million voters, especially in rural areas.
His Fidesz party won a twothirds majority for the third straight time in Sunday’s election, meaning he has the power to change constitutional laws. The victory could embolden Orban to put more muscle into a Central European alliance against EU migration policies, working with other right-wing nationalists in Poland and Austria, and further expose cracks in the 28-nation European Union.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu phoned Orban on Monday to congratulate him on his victory.
Netanyahu, according to a statement put out by his spokesman, invited the Hungarian leader to visit Israel and thanked him for his country’s support in international forums. Hungary was one of only six of the 28 EU countries to abstain in the UN General Assembly vote in December condemning the US for recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Netanyahu came under domestic criticism in July when he became the first Israeli prime minister to visit Budapest since the fall of the communist regime in 1989. Netanyahu’s visit came amid an anti-immigrant billboard campaign sponsored by the Hungarian government that featured the image of Hungarian-Jewish financier George Soros, and which many in the Jewish community believed had antisemitic overtones.
A month before Netanyahu’s visit, Orban was also sharply criticized for praising as an “exceptional statesman” Miklos Horthy, the Hungarian leader during World War II, when 600,000 of the country’s 800,000 Jews were murdered by the Nazis – with the help of eager Hungarian accomplices – from March 1944 to January 1945.
Orban, in a public statement he made alongside Netanyahu, said Hungary erred and sinned when it cooperated with the Nazis and did not protect its Jews during World War II. He said he made clear to Netanyahu that his government would guarantee the security of the country’s Jewish minority and that it had “zero tolerance for antisemitism.”
Netanyahu and Orban’s relationship goes back to the mid 2000s when the latter came to Israel as head of Hungary’s opposition and Netanyahu was one of the few politicians who paid attention to him.
The two struck up a good relationship, and when Orban became prime minister in 2010, he began pushing for Netanyahu to visit Hungary.
In the wake of the Hungarian election, the European Commission said it was looking forward to working with the country on many challenges.
On Monday, a spokesman for Fidesz said one of the first laws to be passed by the new parliament could be legislation that would empower the government to ban NGOs that support migration and pose a “national security risk.” The proposed legislation, dubbed “Stop Soros” by the government before the vote, is part of Orban’s strident anti-immigration campaign targeting the Hungarian-born US financier, whose philanthropy aims to bolster liberal and open-border values.
A Fidesz spokesman told state radio on Monday: “After parliament is formed, at the end of April... in early May in the next parliament session we can start work... that is needed in the interest of the country, which could be the Stop Soros legal package.”
One non-governmental organization described the prospect of the bill as “terrifyingly serious.”
Among the measures floated before the election were mandatory registration of some non-government organizations that “support illegal immigration,” a 25% tax to be imposed on foreign donations that such NGOs collect, and restraining orders for activists that preclude them from approaching the EU’s external borders in Hungary. Those borders have been fortified since a migrant influx in 2015.
Last month, Orban told state radio that the government had information on activists being paid by Soros.
“We know by name who they are and how they work to transform Hungary into an immigrant country. That’s why we drafted and submitted the Stop Soros bill, which qualifies immigration as an issue of national security,” Orban said before the election.
Soros has called the government campaign against him “distortions and lies” meant to create a false external enemy.
According to preliminary results, with 99% of votes counted, National Election Office data showed Fidesz winning 133 seats, a tight twothirds majority in the 199-seat parliament. The nationalist Jobbik party won 26 seats while the Socialists were projected as third, with 20 lawmakers.
Some of the NGOs that could be hit by the new law said they expected a hardening in the new government’s stance.
“I think what the ruling party promised during the campaign will now come to pass. This was a key promise to stop the Soros organizations, whatever that may mean. With a twothirds majority, there can be no doubt they can and will do it,” said Hungarian Civil Liberties Union director Stefania Kapronczay.
“This is terrifyingly serious,” she added.
Transparency International legal director Miklos Ligeti said that for the time being, it they considered Halasz’s comment “a political declaration made in the heat of an election victory.”
Ligeti added that if the government submitted the version already published earlier this year, it should await the opinion of the European Council’s Venice Committee, which has said it would scrutinize all three laws in the package.
Orban, Hungary’s longest-serving post-communist premier, opposes deeper integration of the EU and – teaming up with Poland – has been a fierce critic of Brussels’s policies. Since coming to power in 2010, his government has locked horns with the European Commission over reforms, which critics say have eroded democratic checks and balances and weakened the independence of the media.
His critics say Orban has put Hungary on an increasingly authoritarian path, and his stance on immigration has fueled xenophobia in the Central European country.
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, president of the National Front, was the first to congratulate Orban on Sunday. Poland’s deputy foreign minister and envoy to the EU Konrad Szymanski said on Monday that his victory was “a confirmation of Central Europe’s emancipation policy.”
However, some people in the capital Budapest, where Fidesz won only six out of 18 voting districts, were very disappointed on Monday morning.
“Well, the government has successfully implemented its hate campaign. They planted hatred in people’s heart, which is very sad,” said Balazs Bansagi, 45, a quality controller.
Herb Keinon contributed to this report.