Long-time readers will remember our Hungarian correspondent CrossWare, who has translated large numbers of Hungarian-language videos and articles, including many speeches by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Long-time readers will also remember the dismay experienced by many people — including our Hungarian correspondents — when Mr. Orbán jumped aboard the COVID bandwagon, and then pushed vax mandates on Hungarian citizens.
The following reassessment of Viktor Orbán was written by CrossWare and published earlier today at Vlad Tepes in a slightly different form.
What about Viktor Orbán?
Thoughts by CrossWare
First of all, what is the connection between the Prime Minister of Hungary and myself?
We were both born and raised in the very same country town, both went to high school there (different ones) and Orbán is one year older than me. But we both grew up in the last period of socialism, so we are both a product of the same era. He went to law school after high school; I went for a BA in Engineering. So even though we ended up in very different places, our beginnings were pretty close to each other.
When socialism ended in 1989, I did not really care much about politics. However I followed his media presence, because he came from the same town as me. Fidesz was an insignificant liberal party at the time, with exactly the same type of message as all the other liberal parties in the world. That was the time when Gorge Soros (a.k.a. Schwartz) “helped” all these liberal parties against the dying socialist/communist powers. In 1998 the Fidesz party won the election (that was the year when I left Hungary and emigrated to Canada) and after just a single term, they were defeated by the communists and their latest liberal party partner the SZDSZ (Federation of Free Democrats). The voting process was suspiciously similar to the later 2020 USA election; the voting papers were destroyed before recount could be requested (against the rules), and Hungary faced eight years of the same type of system that the USA now lives under with Joe Biden.
Viktor Orbán and Fidesz regained power in 2010, and now he is the Prime Minister of Hungary for the fourth time with a two-thirds super-majority. (There are no term limits in Hungary.)
I started focusing on politics again and OV’s role in it when the great migration started in 2015 and he had such a remarkable staunch view on it. That is when I started to translate videos of his speeches for both Gates of Vienna and VladTepesBlog. In 2017, I had to move back to Hungary to help my aging parents and my sister, who suffered some losses and chronic diseases in her life.
That was the point when I started to face reality, which was not always in sync with what Orbán spoke about in his speeches.
In his early years, Viktor Orbán was confronted by a journalist about some difference between what he said and what he did, his answer was eye-opening (at least for me):
“Never listen to what I am saying, only what I am doing” — Viktor Orbán
Well, herein lies the problem…
Living in Hungary opened up for me various sources of information, which contradicted the rosy picture suggested by Orbán’s speeches. Also, I watch all politicians with suspicion, looking for alternate motives for their behaviour. (This could be my personal issue with this “profession”.)
Let’s review all the issues based on some groupings of mine:
His personality, leadership:
I think Viktor Orbán is a highly intelligent, talented politician. Without his knowledge and diligence, Fidesz as a party could have never become so organized and ready to lead. He has a typical type A personality, which makes him a strong, charismatic leader. But it comes with all the negative side of such personality: controlling, aggressive and looking at team members as potential risk to his own power. Orbán successfully eliminated most of the potential talent for leadership in his environment, which means that when he is no longer able to lead Fidesz, the party will face a crisis finding a similar talent to continue to lead.
Economy:
In 2010 the new Orbán government announced a new “movement”, which they called the NER (National Cooperation System). The idea behind it was to strengthen Hungarian-owned companies in all sectors of the economy and with that decrease our dependence on foreign companies, which many times followed their owners’ economic and political agendas. The point was to try to recreate layers of Hungarian owners, rich people who can support national causes. This societal layer was completely eliminated in the communist era. This idea worked completely in theory, but only partially in practice. As with any successful political movement, the hyenas showed up and slowly they built into the system. I have heard multiple rumours about occasions when a successful small business owner receives a visit from a representative from a large NER company, who has “excellent political connections” and makes an offer to buy the business. This is the type of offer which nobody can refuse, because the next day the tax office people arrive, and because of the overcomplicated tax system (which Fidesz, after twelve years of rule, could not fix or never wanted to fix), everyone may be found guilty of breaking some of the rules. So, mafia behaviour is rampantly present in the system, and it does not seem like there is any political will to fix the issues.
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