Left-wing editor accuses PM Orbán of royal ambitions

The editor in chief of the nationwide left-wing daily lambasts the electorate for the outcome of the elections and finds the Prime Minister guilty of monarchic daydreaming.

In Népszava, editor Péter Németh maintains that he and his colleagues were right in describing PM Orbán as a bad character, unfit to govern Hungary. Meanwhile, he admits they were mistaken, in believing that such depictions could alienate the bulk of the electorate from the Prime Minister. People are not the least disturbed by such analyses, he continues, and have reelected Mr Orbán for the fourth time in a row. What’s more, they granted him a crushing, over two-thirds majority in Parliament, he complains, adding that the Prime Minister is thus invested with almost absolute power. Németh describes a video posted on Mr Orbán’s website, showing him accepting his mandate, in which he stops briefly in front of Saint Stephen’s Crown under the cupola of the Parliament building. Németh interprets the gesture as an expression of the Prime Minister’s ‘secret wish’ to become King of Hungary – the only title he still lacks, as the left-wing editor sees it.

Tags: Orbán, two-thirds