If the left wing wins Sunday’s general election, it will give the green light to weapons deliveries to Ukraine the next day, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on the campaign trail on Friday.
Orbán said the opposition also backed proposals to cut off Russian gas and oil supplies. Campaigning in Székesfehérvár, in central Hungary, he accused the opposition of having “already struck a deal with the Ukrainians”.
Furthermore, Orbán insisted the opposition was widely blamed for foul play, but
the scale of their election fraud this time, he added, was “unprecedented”.
He charged the opposition with collecting the personal data of millions of Hungarians illegally and holding it abroad, before returning it to Hungary and bombarding Hungarians with unsolicited messages. “This amounts to obvious and unambiguous election fraud,” he said. “Nevertheless, we must tackle this obstacle course and win the election,” Orban added.
Referring to the October 23 pro-government Peace March, the prime minister said: “Our strongest weapon lies in cooperation and our reliance on one another; this is our true hinterland.” “If we fight together we can break through the thickest wall,” he said,
listing Fidesz opponents as “the liberal world press, all Uncle Gyuri’s [George Soros] activists and the plethora of Brussels bureaucrats.”
The prime minister said that Fidesz had initially focused its campaign on the question of “whether Hungary should return to the failed past or continue the work started twelve years ago.” He said the path to victory was to convince the public that
Ferenc Gyurcsány, the former Socialist prime minister, was “still the boss and that our opponents haven’t changed”.
“But a war broke out in the meantime and changed everything, including our campaign,” Orbán said. The issue then became making a choice between “war and peace”, the prime minister said, adding he believed that everybody in Hungary was “on the side of peace”, irrespective of their party affiliation.
Everyone, he said, would see it as a war between two other nations.
“And since we are Hungarians, our job is to stay out of it,”
he said, adding that “only the national side” could guarantee this. “The left wing believes that Ukraine is fighting our war, which is wrong,” he said. “This is not our war; we cannot win anything, but we could lose everything,” Orbán said, adding that the only way for Hungary to stay out of the war was by not sending weapons or troops to Ukraine, and by not allowing the transit of weapons across the country’s territory.
He said the risks associated with the ongoing war in Ukraine was “incomparably greater” than those of the Yugoslav War in 1999, noting that Russia is a nuclear power.
The Ukrainian president’s efforts to involve as many European countries as possible in the war must be taken “with understanding”, he said, because those aim to mitigate or even avoid defeat, adding that the governing parties’ dispute was not with Ukraine but with the Hungarian opposition, which, he insisted, “has already reached an agreement with the Ukrainians behind our backs”.
Orbán said that if the opposition won Sunday’s election, they would start sending weapons to Ukraine the next day and
back proposals to turn off the taps of Russian pipelines supplying gas and oil to Hungary.
“We must not allow this; we must protect Hungary’s interests,” Orban said, adding that any sanctions on energy deliveries would paralyze Hungary.
“There would be fuel shortages, factories would have to close down, and many people would lose their jobs,” he said. “Our hearts are with the Ukrainians,” Orbán said, adding however that Hungary must stand up for its interests and keep out of the war.
“Hungary has so far provided assistance to close to 600,000 refugees,”
the prime minister said. “This is why Ferenc Gyurcsány is wrong in saying that Hungary is ‘a crap country’. We are a great country that is offering help and providing all the care possible to those who are fleeing from trouble,” said Orbán.
12 Comments
What an apt photo. A bloated, fat man grandstanding on a tiny little chair is a perfect visual metaphor for Orbán’s attempt to make out that he is important big player and trying to grandstand on the world stage while being the leader a very small country with a very small economy.
@anonymous – it’s the Man of the People look … Very effective, somehow
“I will protect you from our Enemies!” “Only I can fix it!” Where have we heard that, before?
We laugh at the Americans and Trump – but lots of people just love that sort of thing, unfortunately
The caricature of a caricature.
@Anonymous, Norbert, Mario
The above comments, brilliant! So very true…… hilarious. Yet also tragic that he’ll probably win again…….
Citizens want to get brainwashed by the Fidesz propaganda machine – thats there problem.
“Do the Crime Pay the Time” – and if people vote for a return of Fidesz – with ALL the WORLD – post the Russian war against the Ukraine – the FACT and position of support that Hungary take – they take ownership and the REASPONSIBILTY – for the DARK days Hungary is Heading – its FUTURE.
Think the headline should have been “Fat man stands on chair”
in 2020, people elected Mr. Biden. Since then, because of the Biden policies, there is high inflation, unprotected border, rising crime rate, high inflation, a disastrous exit from Afghanistan, rising of cancel culture and a failure of the supply chain. Mr. Biden’s popularity is has dropped significantly. Many voters now wish that they would have supported Mr. Trump.
Let this be a warning to people in Hungary. It is better to have a government that puts the people’s interest first. Ceding sovereignty to Brussels will not improve the standard of living. Alienating Russia will not help people heat their homes in the future.
Votes count!
Omg, not one reasonable comment here.
How can people be this dumb?
It makes my blood boil when I read some of the utterly outrages and deceitful statements PM Orbán makes, and what’s more, some good people actually BELIEVE it as if it came from the bible.
Just read the following article if you are not too familiar with PM Orbán: https://www.euronews.com/2022/03/30/hungary-election-who-is-viktor-orban-and-how-has-he-stayed-in-power-for-so-long
@mariavontheresa – even if every one of your points were true, I am SO relieved the Americans have Mr. Biden as their President, at the moment.
Having Mr. Trump deal with a crisis like this would want me to move from Hungary or any other country of the former Soviet Bloc in a heartbeat! Ideally someplace with plenty of fallout shelters
@Norbert – the funny thing is that not only does marievontheresa does not live in Hungary, he/she does not live in the US either. He/she lives in Canada.
Norbert, Mr. Trump may not have been he kind of president you wanted. However, many of his policies were good for the economy and the country.