PM Orbán slammed opposition in his morning interview

Referring to the election campaign, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in an interview with public broadcaster Kossuth Rádió on Friday that “Hungary is going forward, not backwards”.

“We need must learn from what happened up to 2010 and [remember] just how much effort it took to put things right,” Orbán said. “And given our success, we cannot afford to go back to those problems.”

“In 2010, Hungary was bankrupt; it had been ruined and bled dry,” he said. “In the past 12 years, Hungary has worked very hard to correct the mistakes and sins of the previous left-wing governments,” he said.

Orbán said that those who “drove the country to bankruptcy then” now claimed to be ready to take the helm again. “That would mean going backwards.”

“All they know is about is introducing austerity measures and cutting pensions … they won’t raise the minimum wage or pensions as they failed to do so when they last had the opportunity.”

When the left wing was last in power, unemployment was over 12 percent and the economy was contracting in 2010, with

“sky-high taxes and the IMF breathing down our necks”,

Orbán said.

At the same time, “the left-wing parties that are now slamming the health-care system took away one month’s wages from health-care workers and teachers, and one month’s pension from the elderly,” he said.