Clinton seen as the winner

A left-wing analyst urges the government to make gestures towards the United States and erase the impression that it is siding with Donald Trump.

In Népszava, veteran analyst Pál Bokor hopes that the Prime Minister ’will be couragous enough, just as he has been in other cases’ to rectify his earlier position in favouring Donald Trump against Hillary Clinton as the future President of the United States.

At a joint press conference with Chancellor Christian Kern of Austria in July, PM Orbán said “the Democratic Party’s foreign policy is bad for Europe and lethal for Hungary, while Donald Trump’s migration and foreign policy proposals are good for Europe and would mean life for Hungary”. However, when asked about Hungary’s stance towards the US Presidential contest in October, his spokesman said that the Prime Minister had expressed his view on immigration without taking sides in the presidential race.  (For earlier comments on the US presidential race see BudaPost July through September).  

Bokor takes it practically for granted that the next president of the United States will be called Hillary Clinton, and believes that it is still not too late for the Hungarian government to take steps in order to improve bilateral relations. On the policy side he recommends mending conflicts over Hungary’s refusal to host American anti-missile radar systems, the government’s conflict with a small Methodist denomination and anti-American statements by government-friendly authors. On the personal side, Bokor thinks the Prime Minister should send very personal greetings to the new President as soon as the official result of the election is made public.

Tags: diplomacy, Hillary Clinton, US