meanwhile, back at the topic, it seems the hapless orban, having made a pig's breakfast of the hungarian economy, is
relying of the strange antics of his hopeless hero horace q frump
After 16 years of uninterrupted power,
Viktor Orbán is facing his biggest electoral challenge. For years Hungary’s prime minister has spun weak policy performance as success. The rise of a rival, Péter Magyar, and the opposition Tisza party has exposed the limits of that strategy.
The economy is
stagnating, despite repeated promises of a long-awaited takeoff. Over the past decade and a half, Hungary
has slipped from being one of central and eastern Europe’s strongest performers to
one of its weakest. Public services, from healthcare to transport, are widely seen as neglected, and
Policy Solutions surveys show that voters
have noticed. Hungary is not alone in facing a cost of living crisis, but comparisons offer little consolation to voters who were assured that Orbán’s model would deliver exceptional results.
Tisza has unified a previously fragmented opposition and turned the April 12 parliamentary election into a genuine contest. At this stage,
nearly half of Hungarians say they want a change of government.
Yet preference is not the same as confidence. Many voters still doubt that change is within reach. This tension between dissatisfaction with the status quo and nervousness about the feasibility of political change has created an unpredictable electoral landscape. Frustration with Orbán may not be sufficient to overcome fear of the unknown.
Orbán also has something his rival can’t match: he has a tailwind from Washington. While he may have little to shout about at home, Orbán has gained new momentum in Donald Trump’s volatile second term.
Orbán’s campaign narrative now rests on the boast that he is simultaneously on good terms with the leaders of the
United States,
Russia and
China. In a world of strongmen, Hungary needs a leader who can sit at their table.
Expect Trump’s name to feature increasingly in the campaign as Orbán seeks to reinforce the claim that he – and only he – has the ear of the world’s most powerful leaders. His recent
White House audience was proof of international relevance and
this weekend’s visit of Marco Rubio to Budapest will only reinforce that narrative.
What is striking about this campaign is that Fidesz, Orbán’s party, is no longer asking voters to reward it for a record of good governance. Rather, it is warning people that however dissatisfied they may be,
Hungary could be a lot worse off. The aim is not to mobilise hope, but to suppress it – to make sure voters see the ballot box not as an opportunity for change, but as a risk
Opposition challenger Péter Magyar is ahead on a promise of hope. Orbán is betting on fear of war to stay in power, says writer András Bíró-Nagy
www.theguardian.com
in other words, the old IBM and Microsoft strategy of FUD - fear, uncertainty, doubt will be employed...
en.wikipedia.org
comrade stalin
moscow
