Hungary’s PM seeking a third term on anti-migration platform
● Opposition split as Orban focuses on attacking Soros’ support for NGOS
Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban is betting that his relentless campaign against migration will keep his voter base united and motivated for this Sunday’s national election.
Since 400,000 people passed through Hungary in 2015 on their way to Western Europe, Orban has made migration the near-exclusive focus of his government. Now, at most, a few people a day reach the country’s borders.
Orban is seeking his third consecutive term and fourth overall since 1998. Most polls predict hisfidesz party will get around 50 per cent of the votes, far ahead of Jobbik, a nationalist right-wing party, the Socialist Party or several smaller left-wing or green groups.
According to Orban and his ministers, Hungary will descend into chaos should it become an “immigrant country” like France or Belgium. He claims that domestic and European Union funds meant for Hungarian families or the country’s 800,000-strong Roma minority will be diverted to migrants, whose presence will weaken Hungary’s security and increase its terror risk.
If migrants settle in Hungary, Orban claims, Hungary’s economic development will end, its support for rural areas will dwindle, women and girls will be “hunted down” and Budapest, the capital, will become “unrecognisable”.
After building razor-wire fences on the country’s southern borders in 2015 to divert the migrant flow, Orban has constructed a grand conspir- acy theory. He claims the EU, the UN, Hungarian-american financier George Soros and the civic groups he sponsors are all conspiring to force Hungary to take in thousands of mainly Muslim migrants to “weaken its independence and its Christian identity and culture”.
He spoke last month about a “Soros mercenary army” with around 2,000 people “being paid to work toward bringing down the government” in Sunday’s vote.
Although opposition candidates won only 10 individual districts in the 2014 vote, they are urging supporters to vote tactically for the opposition candidate in each district who has the best chance to prevent a Fidesz victory.
“People may not even vote for their favorite party or candidate but rather for the one with biggest chance”, to defeat said Jobbik leader Gabor Vona.
“As long as the opposition is in a fragmented state this migrant/refugee campaign is sufficient to keep [Orban’s] voting base united, to keep it mobilised,” said Balazs Bocskei, political analyst at the Idea Institute, a Budapest think-tank.
Spokesman Zoltan Kovacs says the government’s “Stop Soros” package aimed to close “legal loopholes.”
“So-called NGOS camouflaging themselves as philanthropic and human rights groups are basically going against the established rules of this country and the European Union, helping illegal immigration happen,” Kovacs said.
“The ‘Stop Soros’ package already results in considerable self-censorship. For reasons of safety, we don’t work anymore the way that we used to,” said Annastiina Kallius of the Migrant Solidarity Group of Hungary.