NYT on Orbán: “Bent the judiciary and the news media to his will”
The New York Times says the problems facing the Hungarian economy are inflation and the rapidly depreciating forint. Andrew Higgins says the Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán has become an “outsize liberal bugbear”.
New York Times article about Orbán
“He has won four consecutive elections, bent the judiciary and the news media to his will, rewritten the Constitution and turned a small East European backwater into an unlikely beacon for “America First” Republican” is the opening line of an article about Hungary and Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in the New York Times. The article was first noticed by Mandiner.
“But Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary and his governing party, Fidesz, now confront forces resistant to his implacable political will: the laws of economics as the government struggles with a big budget deficit and ordinary Hungarians with soaring inflation” continues the writer of the article.
The biggest problems are inflation and an ever weakening national currency
The New York Times says the biggest problems facing the Hungarian economy are inflation and the rapidly depreciating forint. In Budapest, the regular street protests are not a threat to the government, as elections are not due until 2026.
“The Hungarian leader is being confronted with soaring inflation and a depreciating currency linked to unsustainable spending by his government,” the article reads the rather strong words. Andrew Higgings reminds us in his summary that the Prime Minister “bent the judiciary and the news media to his will, rewritten the Constitution and turned a small East European backwater into an unlikely beacon for “America First” Republicans and an outsize liberal bugbear.”
But now, he is facing a force independent of his political will: the laws of economics, as those in power struggle with huge budget deficits and the people struggle with soaring prices, the article says.
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Now he has to beg for money
They add that street protests do not threaten the government as the next election will be in 2026. However, the EU’s most vociferous critic and fierce defender of national sovereignty is in the uncomfortable position of having to go to the “Eurocrats” with his hat off to beg. The very people he has been denigrating for years, yet now he is forced to ask them for tens of millions of dollars after Brussels stopped payment because of breaches of the law.
Among other things, the article also refers to Viktor Orbán’s speech in Tusnádfürdő, which, according to them, probably did not increase Hungary’s chances of getting the much-needed money from the European Union, Index writes. They end the article by saying that despite all this, Hungary will still receive nearly EUR 15 billion (HUF 6,065 billion) in epidemiological aid from the EU, and additional funds in the coming months.
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Source: Index, Mandiner, The New York Times
10 Comments
Ugly but true.
Hungary you elected him and “supported” his dictatorship along with his oligarchs.
He did not bent them-He CONTROLS them.
NYT has the gull to criticize the relationship between Mr. Orban and media. Just think of all the lies NYT published, remember the Russian hoax and Hunter Biden’s laptop just to name a few. NYT is not even good enough to line a bird cage. NYT is a leftist, Marxist democrat supporter rag.
I would take whatever the NYT says with a grain of salt. In fact, their roof is way to fragile to rise up to any pedestal, especially when it comes to the truth.
Among other things, the NYT lied for years about Ukraine’s Holodomor with Walter Duranty; buried the Holocaust to their inner pages if not ignored it altogether and propped up Fidel Castro to their front pages, courtesy of Herbert Matthews, when the guy was all but struggling to survive in the eastern mountains of Cuba. In other words, NYT is just the most elitist source of misinformation of the planet.
Who reads the propaganda ”news” from NYT??
You have to have an IQ of a carrot to believe the lies.
Regardless of what this specific article is about.
NYT has to be ignored and put out of buisseness.
All very true. Orbánistan, formerly known as the Republic of Hungary, is a de facto dictatorship.
Two commentators here took the very words out of my mouth.
It’s common knowledge that inflation is high all over the world, and that a lot of the media tend to lean either to this side of politics, or the other, but in the case of Hungary, V.O. has almost all of it under his thumb (if they want to survive they have to tow HIS line), and of course the judiaciary as well.
If the good people of Hungary have an open mind, and want to see cold hard reality, then it’s as clear as their nose on their face.
@mariavontheresa, inflation IS rampant and is set to be nearly the highest in Europe after Estonia, the value of the forint IS dropping like a stone (further fuelling inflation), the debt to percentage of GDP is heading towards 77, just short of the 2012 level, the last figures show a 7.21 billion USD budget deficit and rising, the Hungarian 10Y bonds (money the government has to borrow) is now a very high 8.71%. All of these are immutable facts.
The NYT is joke. 7 years of hating trump would like nothing more to destroy Obran. This coming from the country that has printed trillions in less 18 months and is the position to destabilize the the world.
Biden – Harris – and Pelosi are dumbest people in my 80 years and the NYT dare not critizise. The BBC and the NYT control all the western media. A good example of the joke of how Covid has been handled along with some of the most powerful goverment agencies in the world.
Interesting they had little interest in the EU and US corruption in Ukraine with the now president who was point man for 8 years under BO and more corrupt than anything in Eastern Europe – you can thank these clowns for the war today,
Orban and Putin. Tweedledum and Tweedledee