Viktor Orbán’s national conservative Fidesz party is famous for its method of relentlessly searching the ideal topic for their next populist campaign. They need topics that allow them to dominate public life in the long term, and can be used to generate intense anger.
Hungary is loth to leave its past behind, with radicals reemerging annually to celebrate the historic bloodshed of WW2. Athough the news was awash with the marching boots of neo-Nazis in Hungary, there is another story behind the black uniforms parading through the streets of Budapest.
Hungarian politics in 2020 will be different from 2019 in a number of ways. After years of paralysis and disarray of the Hungarian non-Fidesz opposition, they are back in the political game after a surprise non-defeat at the municipal elections in October 2019.
Family Protection Action Plan, which bears all the hallmarks of an authoritarian staple, is dehumanizing, pits demographic groups against each other and distorts the markets. It also creates a distraction for the citizens and puts the opposition in a corner where their only option is a bidding war.
Hungary held its municipal elections on October 13, 2019. Although the opposition and the regnant Fidesz party applied starkly different communication strategies, one topic featured in both campaigns: antisemitism.
It is crucial to understand the quality and evolution of Hungarian-American relations under the Orbán governments, which have been in office since 2010, as well as the main defining events in the relationship between the Hungarian and American governments.
In mid-June, hundreds of thousands of Czechs took to the streets of Prague calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Andrej Babiš in light of both a criminal investigation in the Czech Republic over alleged fraud, and an EU investigation over the abuse of EU funds by his Agrofert conglomerate.
The Hungarian government is not anti-Semitic. It is populist. Playing right into the fears of people is a typical populist strategy. It builds on the same fears as anti-Semitic campaigns do, true, but despite the same foundations, the end results are somewhart different.
Looking at the results in the V4 countries (Slovakia, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary) helps gain a better understanding of the popularity of liberals. In the 2019 European elections, liberal parties performed quite well, especially in light of the popularity of the far-right in the region.
The last days of the Hungarian EP election campaign were characterized by an ever-intensifying anti-EU campaign on government-controlled and fringe disinformation portals. The Hungarian government seeks a strong mandate to represent its interest in the European Union
