Wake up call from Magyar Nemzet
February 28th, 2015The number one right-wing daily continues its campaign for change in the wake of the two main events of the past month – the open rift between its owner and the Prime Minister on the one hand and Fidesz’s defeat in the Veszprém by-election on the other.
In the latest of a series of Magyar Nemzet editorials on the Veszprém by-election, Zoltán Hegyi rejects the accusation that the defeat of the pro-government candidate was due to the negative attitude of the “Simicska media”. (The feud between the Prime Minister and former Fidesz treasurer Lajos Simicska, the founder of the right-wing media empire has been underway since June last year but rose to prominence early this month. See BudaPost, February 11.) “The Simicska media, Hegyi argues, only asked for modesty and moderation”. Without mentioning János Lázár, the Cabinet Minister in charge of the Prime Minister’s office by name, Hegyi criticises him for having famously said that those who have nothing are worth nothing and for having attacked veteran Fidesz leaders who cautioned younger officials against showing off their wealth (see BudaPost, December 22, 2014.). Wake up!, he exclaims and predicts that if nothing changes in the meantime, Fidesz is bound to lose another by-election, in Tapolca, in April this year. This time to the radical right-wing party, Jobbik, he suspects.