Hungarians face a dilemma whether to heat or buy food?

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán “has lost control over what happens in Hungary”, a member of the opposition Democratic Coalition said on Wednesday, insisting that the prime minister “didn’t touch on people’s everyday problems” in his international press briefing earlier in the day “because he cannot resolve them”.

Csaba Molnár said the prime minister had made it clear in his presser that “the country cannot expect the government to make a turnaround”, adding that “policies of the past 12 years, which have destroyed the country … will stay”. “As long as Orbán stays, the crisis will stay and the longer he stays the bigger the problem will grow,” he insisted.

Conservative Jobbik insisted that “it was the Orbán government the made 2022 the most difficult year for Hungary since the political regime change” of 1989. The prime minister’s presser “has projected what we can expect in 2023: lies, even more lies, and no responsible government or decisions”, the party said in a statement. They insisted the government had failed to manage the crisis and its “ill-advised” economic policy had driven the country to the brink of bankruptcy, while Orban “pointed the finger at the war, the EP, and Brussels” in his press briefing.

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They said the government had “bled people and businesses dry” by changing the small business tax, while people are “being destroyed through record-high VAT” and they “have to face the situation of wages and pensions being despicably low even in a regional comparison”.

The Momentum party said ruling Fidesz “even lied in the face of its own voters” and the government’s work had been “chaotic” in 2022. In his press briefing the prime minister had “blamed others and shunned responsibility for Hungary’s worst times in recent decades”. They said Orbán’s referring to “exceptional achievements” and not mentioning an economic and cost-of-living crisis hitting the country was “both shocking and desperate”.

Momentum pointed to the “price cap inflation” of food prices, soaring energy costs, and the weakness of the Hungarian currency and insisted that “many families will face a dilemma at the end of the month whether to heat their home or buy food”.

Orbán, Momentum said, could “only blame the sanctions he himself voted for, the minister he appointed, an economic system he introduced and the governor of the central bank chosen by his own party”.

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Source: MTI