PM Orbán opens the ‘political season’
August 29th, 2023Commentators offer starkly opposing evaluations of the Prime Minister’s words at his party’s annual ‘Tranzit’ festival in Tihany, at Lake Balaton.
Addressing a crowd of party and government officials and activists, the Prime Minister described Hungary’s left-wing parties as agents of big international financial groups. In contrast, he said, Fidesz thinks in terms of the national interest. The liberals and the Left, he continued, consider the individual as most important in a society, while the right-wing conservative understanding regards family, home, and God as more important than the individual.
In the headline to his Magyar Nemzet editorial, Ottó Gajdics describes the PM’s words as a ‘revelation’. Hungary, he writes, is waging a David vs Goliath struggle against the international Left and has luckily managed to defeat its ‘local agents’ four times in a row. Gajdics welcomes the Prime Minister’s plan to also take over ‘the institutions’ meaning culture and education which in his opinion are still dominated by the Left.
In Népszava, Péter Bod reads the PM’s address as expressing his intention to remain in power at whatever cost, which he believes excludes a diversity of views and competition in politics. He reads the Prime Minister’s words as a collection of empty phrases instead of a clear roadmap to lead Hungary out of its crisis. He attributes the lack of a clear vision to what he sees as the Prime Minister’s increasing isolation and loneliness.