Election 2018 – DK: Orbán politically blacklisting NGO employees

The opposition Democratic Coalition has accused Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of politically blacklisting 2,000 employees of NGOs whom Orbán, in a radio interview on Friday, accused of working to overthrow the government.

In his interview to Kossuth Radio, Orbán said George Soros paid NGO activists to serve the goals of the US financier’s “empire” by organising migration and “eliminating the foundations on which Christian nations and a Christian Europe are based”. These NGOs, Orbán added, attacked anti-immigration governments under pressure from Brussels, and then they influence the election to ensure their pro-migration goals are represented in parliament with the ultimate goal of serving the business interests of Soros. He said this was the reason for the government’s “Stop Soros” bill.

DK spokesman Zsolt Gréczy told a press conference today that Orbán had spoken like “a dictator”.

The DK spokesman said Orbán had shown in his interview that he was either “a crooked villain or finally off his rocker”. The DK spokesman insisted: “There are no Soros agents.” Orbán political opponents do not number 2,000 but 6 million, he added.

If the prime minister makes good on his threat to crack down on the NGOs in question, then DK will give political and legal protection to the people and organisations involved, Gréczy said.

Meanwhile, asked about comments made in an interview by Gergely Karácsony, the prime ministerial candidate of the Socialist-Párbeszéd alliance, that ministers of the pre-2010 governments would not be asked into a cabinet which he led, Gréczy said the coalition talks would determine who would end up as ministers as well as who would be asked to head the government.

“There were several excellent ministers in Hungary before 2010, many of whom currently play an important role in the Socialist Party,” he said.

Balázs Hidvéghi, the ruling Fidesz party’s communications director, said the opposition had “jumped at the first chance” to defend “Soros’s people and his entire network”.

Hidveghi told public media: “It’s clear from the opposition’s fierce reaction that the shouting comes from those whose house is burning”.

“It is quite clear that more than 2,000 people in Hungary are working against Viktor Orbán and Hungary in order to weaken the anti-immigration national government,” he said, citing Tracie Ahern, the former chief executive of Soros Fund Management. Soros wants to replace Fidesz with a pliant government that would turn Hungary into an immigration country, he said.

Source: MTi