Opposition leader vows to restore ties with West
HODMEZOVASARHELY, Hungary — Hungary’s opposition leader wants to restore his country’s frayed ties with the West — and also has a message for American fans of right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
“Let me state very strongly for all Americans that to be a part of
Putin’s fan club doesn’t make you a conservative,” Peter Marki-Zay, a selfdescribed conservative Christian running against Orban in next year’s elections, said in an interview.
“Orban is betraying Europe, Orban is betraying NATO, Orban is betraying the United States,” he said.
Marki-Zay, the 49-yearold mayor of the small city of Hodmezovasarhely, is leading a diverse coalition of six opposition parties aiming to defeat Hungary’s hard-line leader and his ruling Fidesz party in parliamentary elections scheduled for April.
If elected, Marki-Zay says, he will reverse the closer ties Orban has pursued with autocracies in Russia and China, and improve his country’s relations with the European Union and other Western allies.
“I still stand for Western values, and we cannot accept a corrupt thug ... who betrays Western values and who is now a servant of Communist China and Russia,” he said.
Governing Hungary with a two-thirds majority in parliament since 2010, the right-wing populist Orban and his antiimmigration party have dominated the fractured opposition in all subsequent elections, and cemented their power through changes to election laws, stacking institutions with loyalists and dominating large portions of Hungary’s media.
While Orban’s critics in Europe have warned of an alarming erosion of democracy, some of his policies — like his staunch rejection of refugees and generous financial support to families with children — have attracted praise from right-wing American commentators.