“While Fidesz’ symbol is orange, ours is the double cross” Interview with Jobbik’s new president

Elected by Jobbik’s national congress on Saturday, the party’s new president Tamás Sneider answered alfahir.hu’s questions after a church service. He wants to put the party’s communication in order, he firmly stands for a people’s party Jobbik, he believes that Jobbik supporters are more socially sensitive than the Orbán government and categorically condemns the group of protesters insulting church leaders. Mr Sneider also talked about Jobbik’s position on migration, the reasons why he endorsed Márton Gyöngyösi as executive vice president and Gábor Vona’s future role in the party.

Over the past few weeks, the government’s media was using the public Facebook messages posted by Jobbik politicians as a source of ammunition. Will the party of order put its communication in order?

Yes. I consider it an important task to put an end to this. Articles to that effect have been published in recent weeks, too. I believe the board and the parliamentary faction will support me in that as well.

After the post-congress press conference, you stated that Jobbik was going to keep to the national people’s party line. What does the concept of a national people’s party mean?

It means a modern movement that respects, preserves as well as renews our traditions and national identity amongst all the changes.

It means a movement which can reach out to the widest layers of our society because it can give firm responses to radical changes while forming a continuity amongst the changing social relations.

You also said you wanted a socially sensitive national people’s party. What would that look like in practice?

Our social sensitivity has been beyond doubt as our members and MPs were brought up and socialized in an environment where they either lived through hardships themselves or closely witnessed these difficult conditions. As a result, we are much more sensitive to such social situations on a personal level, too. We are the only party with a closely connected charity service, which is largely funded by the payments of our MPs and has been able to provide millions of Forints for those in need, and organized countless volunteer work projects as well.

The social gap has clearly been opening under the Orbán regime. We must take political action against this process because it is taking our nation into a demographic pitfall and digging trenches between the different groups of our society.

Lots of people no longer feel they are part of Hungary’s society because they feel rather left behind by the government. This just creates further schisms in our already torn and battered national identity.

In 2003, Jobbik’s founding charter stated that the party followed the Christian conservative values. Viktor Orbán announced after the elections that he wanted Christian democracy. What is your position on Christianity now?

Perhaps it’s enough for me to note that we are having this conversation right after a church service. While Fidesz’s symbol is the orange, ours is the double cross. While Fidesz neglects the ten commandments, we do our best to observe them day after day. I believe that the Christian faith is something you must feel and live yourself. For that to happen however, you need strong churches which, as institutions, are entitled to funding.

Beside faith, Christian ideology and principles form the foundation of European values. If it wasn’t for them, we would not be European.