Premier steps up crackdown on his critics
BUDAPEST, Hungary — Nearly 30 years after the end of communism, the tightening stranglehold Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his oligarch allies have on key sectors of Hungary’s media has inspired a group of activists to relaunch a modern version of samizdat, the clandestine publications created by dissidents in the Soviet era.
On a recent day, activists handed out copies of the publication to passengers on outbound trains at Budapest’s Keleti station, hoping copies would reach people in rural areas whose main source of news comes from heavily controlled state news outlets.
Yet this act of resistance is unlikely to do much to shake the rule of the 54year-old Orban, who has centralized power for his conservative Fidesz party over eight years of rule and seems set to win a third consecutive term in April elections.
On Sunday, Orban, who also had an earlier stint as prime minister from 1998 to 2002, will deliver his annual “state of the nation” speech, something he has done every year for the past 20 years whether in office or not. This year it comes as he intensifies efforts to silence civic groups critical of his government ahead of the April 8 vote.
Despite strong economic growth and record-low unemployment, Orban is expected to continue vilifying migration, the European Union and his personal bete noire, Hungarian American financier George Soros, whose ideal of an “open society” clashes with Orban’s efforts to turn Hungary into an “illiberal state” not open to migrants.
Orban’s penchant for stirring up conflict may be rooted in his stated belief that Hungarians reach out to him when they feel in trouble but choose the opposition when things go well.
“One of the main characteristics of Viktor Orban and his current government is that they have to constantly be at war with an enemy,” said Peter Kreko, political analyst and executive director at Political Capital, a Budapest research firm.
Since becoming premier for the second time in 2010, Orban has introduced a new constitution, placed associates at the head of the prosecutor’s office, the state audit office and other state institutions and swollen the role of the state in the economy and public life to the detriment of civic groups and private enterprise. Meanwhile, several oligarchs close to him and enriched by state contracts and EU funds, have bought up hundreds of media outlets that now emit a steady stream of government propaganda.
“Since 2010, the government has gradually minimized space for independent media,” said Janos Laszlo, the editor of the samizdat publication, which is meant to be printed out from the Internet, folded into a small four-page newsletter and is called “You Print, Too!”
“They have very consciously isolated their voter base and assailed them with the anti-migrant campaign built on fear to which the less informed, poorer rural residents were more receptive,” Laszlo said as he and fellow activists distributed the newsletter.
Orban, a former student leader and liberal who became known when he publicly called for the exit of Soviet troops in 1989, made a conservative turn in the mid-1990s and is now a leading opponent of migration into Europe, especially by Muslims, whom he sees as threats to Europe’s cultural heritage.