Free Republic

The victory of Viktor Orbán and his party Fidesz in the Hungarian elections last month elicited the predictable flurry of laments over the rise of illiberalism. Such coverage has tended to emphasize the Orbán government’s animosity towards the Hungarian-American financier George Soros, a prolific contributor to progressive causes in Hungary and around the world. Soros is best known for his Open Society Foundation to which he donated $18 billion last year, his association with the Clintons, and as the financial speculator “who broke the Bank of England” in 1992. But he’s also come to be regarded as a leader of...

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban easily won a third consecutive term Sunday and his Fidesz party was poised to regain its super majority in parliament, according to preliminary results from the country's election. With 84.7 percent of the votes counted, Fidesz and its small ally, the Christian Democrat party, had secured 133 of the 199 seats in the legislature, the minimum needed for a two-thirds majority. The right-wing nationalist Jobbik party placed second with 26 seats, while a Socialist-led, left-wing coalition ran third with 20.

In his address at a conference Monday, the founding member of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s conservative Fidesz party stated that “the new technique and ideology of government is aimed at creating (societies) without an identity”. Referring to proponents of global governance as “potential colonists”, Mr. Kövér said: “They want to strip people of their religious, national, family, and even sexual identities so that they are no longer able to recognise, express or enforce their own interests.” Hungary has been at the forefront of the battle against the erosion of the nation-state and conservative values with Prime Minister Orbán, vowing last...

Across Hungary, George Soros’s aged face dominates bus stops, pedestrian pathways, and major intersections with the cryptic message, “Don’t let Soros have the last laugh.” Last laugh? A tag line explained the allusion: “99% reject illegal immigration.” The anti-Soros ad campaign conflates the controversial financier’s investments in leftwing political causes, including open borders, with the European Union’s ongoing effort to force Hungary and other EU countries to accept an annual quota of illegal immigrants. To redistribute hundreds of thousands of people who arrived in Italy and Greece in 2015, the EU assigned each member state a compulsory number: 1,294 for...

Reuters) - Hungarian leader Viktor Orban called on Sunday for a global alliance against migration as his right-wing populist Fidesz party began campaigning for an April 8 election in which it is expected to win a third consecutive landslide victory. Popular at home but increasingly at odds politically and economically with mainstream European Union peers, Orban has thrived on external controversy, including repeated clashes with Brussels and lately the United Nations. Those conflicts, mostly centered on migration since people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa flooded into Europe in 2015, have intensified as the elections approach...

A member of the ruling Hungarian party posted a Facebook picture of a dead pig with the caption "this was Soros." The ruling party, Fidesz, accuses Jewish billionaire George Soros of working to allow migrants entry into Hungary. The party member denied referring to Soros and claimed another possible interpretation...

An unlikely leader has emerged in Europe to represent those who oppose the European Union’s moves to accept a growing deluge of African and Middle Eastern migrants into the continent: the prime minister of tiny Hungary.Viktor Orban, the head of Hungary’s conservative Fidesz party, is very publicly defying European Union officials who have called upon the continent to accept a wave of hundreds of thousands of migrants from countries like Syria, Libya, and South Sudan.In a Thursday speech in Brussels, where the European Parliament is based, Orban pointed out that many migrants currently reaching Europe are hardly coming straight from...

Hungary’s governing party is tipped to win parliamentary elections Sunday, while a far-right party is expected to make further gains, according to polls. Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party and its small ally, the Christian Democrats, are expected to win easily and they may even retain the two-thirds majority in the legislature gained in 2010 which allowed them to pass a new constitution, adopt unconventional economic policies, centralize power and grow the state’s influence at the expense of the private sector.Polls predict Fidesz will win around 45-50 percent of the votes, with a close race for second between a coalition...

By threatening Budapest with financial sanctions and infringement proceedings if the Hungarian government fails to change its policies on the economy and the judiciary, the EU seems to have begun a process that would allow it to get rid of Hungary’s Prime Minister, as it got rid of Berlusconi and Papandreou. But it won’t be that easy. 'This way out, please'. European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso president (right) with Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán in Brussels It took a year and a half for Viktor Orbán to slip to the fringes of European politics. This poses a problem not just for...

The ongoing IMF attack on European Democracy In December of last year I wrote an article called "The cost of the bail out - Just your Democracy."  In it I referenced an IMF document called "Lifting Euro Area Growth: Priorities for Structural Reforms and Governance." What prompted me to look at that IMF publication was the injudicious way the IMF publicly told Portugal that it should cut its unemployment payouts. The document in question, I argued, was nothing short of the IMF's blue-print for how to ensure the public in every country were forced to bear austerity measures in order to...

'Landslide win' for Hungary party More than 100 seats were at stake in Sunday's vote Hungary's conservative opposition party Fidesz has won a two-thirds general election victory, second round results have confirmed. With 99.22% of votes counted, the party had nearly 68% of the popular vote and 263 of the 386 seats in parliament, the national election committee said. Almost a third of the seats were left to be decided on Sunday following the first round two weeks ago. Fidesz promised to create jobs, lower taxes and reduce bureaucracy. The ruling Socialists were in second place on 15% (59...

(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - The opposition Hungarian Citizens Party (Fidesz) is holding on to the top spot in the European nation’s political scene, according to a poll by Gallup Hungary. 30 per cent of respondents would support Fidesz in the next legislative election, down four points since March. The governing Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) is second with 16 per cent, followed by the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) with three per cent, and the Alliance of Free Democrats (SZDSZ) with two per cent. Hungarian voters renewed their National Assembly in April 2006. The MSZP and the SZDSZ secured 210 of...

Russian ambassador accuses Fidesz of lying about Moscow's foreign policy The Russian ambassador to Budapest has accused Hungary's opposition Fidesz party of lying about Moscow's foreign policy. According to Fidesz leader Viktor Orban, Hungary should not become more dependent on Russian gas because energy giant Gazprom is an arm of the state and not a commercial company, a claim denied by Russia. Hungary's Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany visited Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month and discussed gas supplies amid concerns that Hungary is planning to dump a six billion US dollar EU-backed pipeline in favour of Russian gas.

BUDAPEST, Hungary - The main opposition party on Wednesday boycotted an official ceremony in parliament commemorating the 1956 revolution but drew tens of thousands of supporters to its own rally near a city park. The Fidesz-Hungarian Civic Party stayed away from the official event because the government said that veterans of the revolution would not be invited to speak at the ceremony. "Socialism was the greatest lie of the last century," former Prime Minister Viktor Orban told the demonstration organized by Civic Circles, a grass-roots organization close to Fidesz. A smaller opposition party, the Hungarian Democratic Forum, took part...