Orbán

by Paul Lendvai

  Another geographically distant friend is Kazakhstan. When Orbán visited the country to promote the ‘opening to the East’ policy, the official Hungarian news agency MTI reported his speech: ‘It is a strange feeling that you have to travel to Astana to feel at home, whilst in Brussels you are certainly on an equal footing but nevertheless among strangers’. He also warmly praised Kazakhstan ‘as an anchor of stability’. As is so often the case, hard facts contradict the political rhetoric of the Orbán regime here. These two new special friends—Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan—are not even among Hungary’s top sixty trading partners. Trade with the two Central Asian countries actually has been declining over the last decade.

  The most significant shift has occurred in Hungary’s relationship with Russia. Resenting the pressure from the Obama administration and the denunciations by human rights groups, Orbán has deliberately intensified first his government’s, contacts and then cooperation, with Vladimir Putin. As early as November 2009, when he was still only chairman of Fidesz in opposition, he accepted the invitation to attend the party congress of United Russia, the main government party, in St Petersburg. There, according to Hungarian press reports, he had a fifteen-minute conversation with President Putin. By this time it was already obvious that Fidesz would win an easy victory in the coming elections of spring 2010. Nevertheless, Putin remained cautious, and only three days later he met former Socialist premier Ferenc Gyurcsány in a Moscow restaurant for an informal chat, with only their wives and an interpreter present.

  The most important development in Orbán-era relations with Russia has undoubtedly been the €12.5 billion deal signed on 14 January 2014 to expand the Soviet-built nuclear power station at Paks, 70 miles south of Budapest on the Danube, using technology and a thirty-year credit from Russia. Under the agreement Rosatom, the Russian state nuclear power holding, will build two new reactors. There was no international public tender. Hungarian and EU experts questioned the timing and feasibility of the project, and the secrecy provisions—also for thirty years—fostered further doubts. Opposition politicians and independent media have sharply criticised the absence of any relevant information about the financial, technical, environmental or safety conditions of what is by far the largest and most sensitive investment project in Hungary. Furthermore, from the outset there have been rumours and allegations of corruption regarding the choice of the Rosatom corporation. The fact that this highly controversial project was announced shortly before the EU and the US moved to impose sanctions on Moscow over the annexation of Crimea and its military intervention in Ukraine confirmed suspicions about the political consequences of the deal, at the very time when Brussels was urging EU member states to reduce their dependence on Russian energy.13

  This watershed decision about Hungary’s future energy supplies was taken at a time when Orbán frequently clashed with the USA, primarily because the State Department was regularly publishing extremely critical reports on the authoritarian tendencies in Hungary. Public tensions were also triggered by the visa ban placed on high-ranking officials (including the president) of the National Tax and Customs Agency in October 2014 because of suspicions of corruption. Further infuriated by the EU’s efforts to force him to soft-pedal, even if only temporarily, some of the measures taken to promote ‘illiberal democracy’, Orbán has begun to stress the good understanding he has reached with the Russian president. A particular furore was sparked by Putin’s visit to Budapest shortly after that of Angela Merkel in February 2015. By the beginning of 2016, George Soros had gone beyond analysing his differences with Orbán over the handling of the refugee crisis, and warned that the Hungarian prime minister was ‘challenging Merkel for the leadership of Europe … And it is a very real challenge. It attacks the values and principles on which the European Union was founded. Orbán attacks them from the inside, Putin from the outside’.14

  With the international reputation of both leaders tarnished, relations between Putin and Orbán have become more and more intense. Strongman leadership is almost always accompanied by extreme sensitivity to criticism, particularly when it comes from abroad. Within three years between 2015 and 2017, Putin and Orbán have met three times, with the Russian president paying two visits (2015 and 2017) to Budapest, the second only a day before the EU summit meeting on Malta. One has to recall the first twenty years of Orbán’s career, from his famously provocative speech on Heroes’ Square in 1989 to his public quarrel with the Russian ambassador in Budapest over the Russian intervention in Georgia in 2008, to grasp the significance of this rapprochement in the seven years since Fidesz took power. In view of the evidence in politics and media reports, it is no exaggeration to conclude that the Hungarian leader has turned upside down both his personal attitude and his government’s policy towards Russia.

  Under the headline ‘Wedding of the Pariahs’, and with front-page photos of the foreign ministers Sergei Lavrov and Péter Szijjártó embracing each other in Moscow on the eve of Putin’s visit to Budapest on 2 February 2017, the liberal weeklies Magyar Narancs and HVG published a series of articles about the ever closer ties between Russia and Hungary. Time and again, Orbán has publicly criticised the EU sanctions imposed on Russia, and the same line has been repeated by his foreign minister at international conferences and even on a visit to see his fiercely anti-Russian Polish counterpart in Warsaw. Independent Hungarian observers have pointed out the close resemblance between the Orbán regime’s moves against the CEU and the NGOs and Putin’s crackdown on similar institutions. Lajos Bokros, professor of economics at the CEU and head of the Movement for a Modern Hungary party, stated in an interview that Russian interests and, more specifically, Putin’s dislike of this independent university’s ‘production’ of free thinkers from the various post-Soviet republics had been responsible for the legal action aimed at the closure of the CEU. Though this claim has not yet been confirmed by other sources, the growing Russian influence is certainly reflected in its energy supply levels to Hungary (30 per cent of natural gas and 17.9 per cent of nuclear energy), in the opaque structure of the gas trading company MET Hungary Zrt (involving offshore firms of Russian background and one of Orbán‘s favourite oligarchs, Istvan Garancsi) and in the deals between Gazprom (majority-owned by Moscow) and the Hungarian state company MVM Partner Zrt., involving Russian gas deliveries at secret prices.

  The fact that responses to the questionnaires issued in the spring 2017 anti-EU leaflet campaign ended up on the website of Yandex, a Russian digital firm said also to be connected with Moscow’s secret services, caused a public uproar in parliament—but without any consequences, as usual, because the prime minister avoided a direct answer to a question from an opposition MP. When the news site 444.hu checked MTV (state television)’s weekly news programme, it revealed that one of the programme’s most important sources of information about events in Syria was the Russian Sputnik News network, which ranks jointly with Russia Today as the chief producers of fake news and disinformation. This did not trouble Foreign Minister Szijjártó, who explicitly praised Russia Today in an interview with the Moscow daily Kommersant. The independent media and opposition spokesmen have also drawn attention to the uncontrolled activities of the Russian secret services in Hungary, and to the fact that a Hungarian diplomat in Moscow sold 4,000 entry visas to Russians without the consulate having any information about these individuals. In general, Hungary is regarded as one of the countries in the EU and in NATO that gives most weight to Russia’s interests; this, the economic weekly HVG concludes, is rewarded by Putin through his series of visits to the country.15

  Concern about the growing Russian influence was expressed in a frank interview by the first foreign minister (1990–4) after the regime change, under the Antall government. Géza Jeszenszky was also the former Hungarian ambassador to the USA and later Norway. He said:

  Orbán’s present policy brings us into dependence (on Russia) … Hungarian foreign policy has no alternative to the Atlantic orientation. What has the openin
g to the East brought? Nothing … As a result of the increasing friendship with Russia and of the onslaught on the freedom of the press, I see democracy endangered. But no power is irreplaceable power.16

  Speculation about the reasons for the new pro-Russian orientation peaked in the spring of 2017, when Lajos Simicska, Orbán’s once close friend and now implacable enemy (see Chapter 14), revealed new details of his conversation with the prime minister the day after Fidesz’s electoral triumph in 2014. Orbán, he said, had sketched out a complete programme for control of the media, including his idea of buying the RTL TV broadcaster in order to liquidate it after purchase. He even asked Simicska for an estimate of how much such a project would cost. Simicska said that he did not know, but probably at least €300 million. ‘No problem, Rosatom will buy it for me,’ Orbán reportedly replied. One week later, in a further personal encounter, Simicska told the prime minister that, in view of the ever strengthening links with Russia, he refused to take part in this action. ‘I have my principles. Had I gone ahead, my father would have turned over in his grave. I haven’t signed a contract to become a mafia boss and a traitor to my country,’ Simicska claims to have said, adding that this was the point of the rupture between him and Orbán.

  The prime minister has continued with his tactic of not responding to Simicska’s explosive revelations, just as he did at the time of the initial rift two years earlier. His spokesman voiced this approach:

  We do not want to deal with the absurd allegations of the billionaire boss of Jobbik … It is amusing that the new boss of Jobbik is throwing about such allegations, the same Jobbik which still has and defends in its ranks the key figure of the Russian spy scandal, Béla Kovács.17

  The fact that the prime minister has not accused Simicska of spreading untruths means that practically anything can be stated about him. Thus, in parliament the Jobbik leader Gábor Vona and his colleagues have repeatedly accused the prime minister and his family of enriching themselves. In the spring of 2017, giant posters put up by Jobbik showed the faces of Orbán and his alleged strawman Lörinc Mészáros, proclaiming in huge letters: ‘They steal—you work’. By 2017 Mészáros, the mayor of Felcsút and Orbán’s closest friend, had become the fifth richest Hungarian, after a fivefold increase of his assets in one year to €80 million. It was also noted that, between 2013 and 2015, the construction firms of Orbán’s father and his two brothers yielded a net profit of almost €7 million.18

  A few weeks later, the whispering campaign about the shady business deals of Orbán’s cronies culminated in an astonishing claim. The former prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsány announced at a public meeting of his Democratic Coalition party that he had proof showing that the Russians possessed documents with which they could blackmail Orbán, and that this was the reason for his startling collaboration with Moscow. He challenged the prime minister to sue him. Neither Orbán nor Gyurcsány appeared at a subsequent meeting of the parliamentary subcommittee on national security, but the secret and intelligence services stated in a joint communiqué that there was no evidence in their files incriminating the prime minister. At the time of writing, Gyurcsány has failed to offer a shred of evidence to support his allegations. After a series of reports about controversial business deals concluded by Mészáros, Jobbik leader Vona accused the prime minister in parliament on 12 June 2017 of converting Hungary into a global frontrunner of corruption: ‘You don’t even deny that Lörinc Mészáros is your strawman. He gradually swallows all the EU resources … This is a mafia government, and you personally are the head of the mafia.’19

  So far in his long political career, Orbán has been the beneficiary of spectacular luck with regard to the left-liberal opposition. His erstwhile potentially most dangerous challenger Gyurcsány (prime minister from 2004–9) is today considered simply unacceptable by an overwhelming majority of Hungarians. His position imploded as far back as 2006, under the weight of the ‘lie speech’ scandal, with the consequences fuelling Orbán’s rise four years later. Gyurcsány’s incessant political activity has succeeded in consolidating his estimated hardcore base of 300,000 to 500,000 voters after his 2011 break with the Socialist Party, but he has remained a convenient scapegoat for all that is wrong with the opposition.

  In contrast to his predecessor, Orbán has played his hand with great skill from the very beginning, outmanoeuvring his opponents and maintaining his grip on power. He has managed to split and corrupt the discredited Socialists with a series of hapless leaders. It remains to be seen whether their new chief László Botka, successful mayor of the city of Pécs, will be able to regain popular backing. The liberal opposition, fragmented and permanently infighting, desperately needs to regain credibility. The inescapable consequence of public apathy is a remarkable indifference to the endemic corruption of the Orbán regime, as shown by all opinion polls. The smaller opposition groups have so far failed to show that they stand for more than noisy protests and simplistic slogans (‘The rich should pay’). The most exciting question for the future is whether the young activists of the Momentum movement will be able to become a successful party with proper organisational structure.

  As to the demands of the EU and the EPP addressed to the Fidesz government, Orbán has repeatedly shown that his promises are not worth the paper they are printed upon. If independent critics are right that only fundamental international changes could sweep away the Orbán regime, and that elections will fail to shatter the power structure, than one can only think in terms of a durable Fidesz leadership faced with a desperately weak parliamentary opposition. Viktor Orbán makes no secret of his will to power. In an interview with the German business magazine Wirtschaftswoche, he reaffirmed that ‘I will remain in politics for the coming 15 to 20 years. Maybe in the front row, maybe in the third. Exactly where will be decided by the voters’.20

  Despite the conflict with the EU and the stench of corruption and graft at all levels of the administration, I have never, since the regime change in 1989, seen so bleak a future for a progressive and liberal change in Hungary, or for Enlightenment values: tolerance, respect for the importance of fair debate, checked and balanced government, objectivity and impartiality in the media, recognition of international independence. The campaign against George Soros and his foundation has revealed a depth of cynicism and calculation shocking even by Fidesz standards. Yet, once again, Orbán has managed to diffuse international condemnation on grounds of perceived anti-Semitism by forging a political marriage of convenience with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, an equally cynical, ruthless and shrewd operator. Each side uses the other as a smokescreen to cover up ugly realities and offer pretexts to blunt liberal critics.21 Mean-while, in order to stay in power, Orbán and his acolytes continue to abuse those who disagree with them as unpatriotic scaremongers and traitors to their country. The government-controlled media outlets play on historical prejudices and ignorance, and the regime continues to blame the European Union for its own failings and mistakes.

  Even for an opposition under more credible leadership, it is going to be a long, hard road ahead to break Orbán’s grip on power. His decisive leadership is backed by a willingness (sometimes explicitly affirmed) to use force, if necessary, against ‘the enemies of the state’. Nobody knows how far Viktor Orbán, who has so often surprised both his compatriots and the world, will go to avoid giving up power, with all its consequences for him, his family and his cronies.

  NOTES

  1. THE PERSONAL TOUCH

  1.Lüthy, Herbert, Der Monat, Berlin, 1967.

  2.Jahanbegloo, Ramin, Conversations with Isaiah Berlin, London, 1992, pp. 34, 149.

  3.Except for the controversial case of Béla Biszku (1921–2016), minister of the interior in 1957–61, subsequently deputy premier and party secretary, who was sentenced to two years in prison for complicity in war crimes (suspended for three years) at the age of ninety-four, shortly before his death.

  2. THE LONG CLIMB FROM BOTTOM TO TOP

  1.Sárközy, T
amás, Kétharmados Tulkormányzás, Budapest, 2014; Sárközy, Tamás, Magyarország Kormányzása, Budapest, 2012.

  2.Weber, Max, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, Tübingen, 1972.

  3.For details of Habony’s career, see Chapter 15.

  4.For all citations about Viktor Orbán see: Debreczeni, József, Viktor Orbán, Budapest, 2003 & Arcmás, Budapest, 2009; Kéri, László, Viktor Orbán, Budapest, 1994; Pünkösti, Árpád, Szeplötelen fogantatás, Budapest, 2005; Kende, Peter, A Viktor, Budapest, 2002; Petöcz, György, Csak a narancs volt, Budapest, 2001; Richter, Anna, Ellenzéki Kerekasztal, Budapest, 1990; Lengyel, László, Uj Magyar Bestiárium, Budapest, 2015; Janke, Igor, Hajrá Magyarok, Budapest, 2012; Bozóki, András, István Javorniczky and István Stumpf, Magyar Politikusok Arcképcsarnoka, Budapest, 1998.

  5.István Bibó (1911–79) was a legal scholar and political scientist. He took part in the resistance movement in 1944, wrote basic texts about Hungarian contemporary history and in November 1956 became a minister in the revolutionary government. After the Soviet intervention he was imprisoned for six years. The Bibó College is located in the prominent quarter of Buda in a two-storey villa with a large garden, which was built at the beginning of the twentieth century by József Madzsar, a Socialist doctor, and his wife Alice Jászi, a famous dancer and pedagogue; before the collapse of the Dual Monarchy it served as a meeting place for liberals and left-wing intellectuals.

  6.Paris, Rainer, ‘Herrschen und Führen’, Merkur (November 2011).

  3. THE RISE AND FALL OF A SHOOTING STAR

  1.Pataki, Ferenc, Hosszú menetelés, A Fidesz-Jelenség, Budapest, 2013.

  2.Népszabadság (1 September 1990).

  3.Also an author, civil rights campaigner against the communist regime, and representative of the CSCE (Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe) for the freedom of the media, 2004–10.