Election stakes assessed with six days to go

A pro-government and a left-wing columnist believe that next Sunday’s election will determine Hungary’s fate for a long time to come. 

In Magyar Idők, Dávid Megyeri agrees with Prime Minister Orbán that country’s future will be decided at this Parliamentary election. In an interview with Zsolt Bayer on Echo TV, PM Orbán said that what is at stake is whether Hungary will remain sovereign or become ‘an immigrant country’. Viktor Orbán added that voters will have to decide between his national government, and ‘the candidates of what he called ‘the pro-immigration forces led by George Soros’. In an aside, he claimed that there is a secret agreement between former PM Gyurcsány and Jobbik leader Gábor Vona on weakening the Hungarian nation-state once they win the election. Megyeri exhorts Hungarians to be faithful to their tradition of pursuing self-rule. On Sunday, he writes, the choice will be between success based on tradition and the ‘quagmire’.

Népszava’s Róbert Friss contends that the election may prove the last opportunity for the Hungarian people to take back power from the government which, according to the left-wing commentator, has ‘poisoned’ the republic. Friss fears that if Fidesz wins the election, it will take tough revenge on all its critics and opponents.

Tags: 2018, Gyurcsány, Orbán, Vona