re: Hungary has fallen: Viktor Orbán concedes to Péter Magyar

If he wanted to be corrupt it would have been easy, he was one of Orbans confidantes. But he chose to do the right thing. Not every politician in the world is a corrupt a-hole.

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Here is Magyar party platform. What exactly is wrong with it? (It does not mention illegal immigration but in many interviews he has said that won't change).

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I don’t think that there is anything wrong with it. In order to release the frozen EU money Hungary has to stop being Putin’s puppet in the EU and frustrating the EU’s efforts to help Ukraine. The people here won’t like that because Zelensky is this board’s bogeyman.

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Terrible.

Think Ukraine in 2014.

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Not unless Orban un-concedes and contests the outcome.

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Good. Orban is a piece of shite

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true that, he also was tight with Putin, Trump, and Russia over America, Europe and Ukraine. This is a win for not only Hungary but also planet earth in general.

Europeans don't like Trump. Orban liked Trump and the US. We supported him. Many Europeans don't care for US citizens. I can see why the other guy won. Any politician running against Trump has a shot. We can now give Europeans two notches on the belt. Orban and Carney.

Carney and Canadians think they are European.

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Is this good or bad? If you like the absurd, self-annihilating things that have gone on in Western European nations under the banner of the “Liberal World Order” then this would be a good result for you.

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Someone has done zero research into this election and it is showing.

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lol. Fallen to what, exactly?

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Stand by for the third-world and Islamic invasion. Because it’s coming.

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EU was withholding 20 million Euros of HUNGARY'S money already (it's "share" for being a member) and that doesn't even take into account the costs of the escape clause.

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Dummy, read my post. Orban had supermajorities in the Fourth and Fifth governments under tenure and an hard-right party tabled a bill that would put EU membership under another referendum. The bill was tabled 6 years ago. Why didn't Orban pursue leaving the EU then?

Also, being in the EU means that the EU has within its rights to withholds funds from members, as I believe they did for states in 2011, 2014, 2017 and 2018. They started Article 7 procedures for Hungary in 2018. Again, why didn't Orban use that moment of Euroscepticism to leave the union?

LINK

When Vice President JD Vance visited Hungary this past week, he spoke at and praised Mathias Corvinus Collegium, an educational institution set up to create a new conservative elite in step with the Russia-friendly and MAGA-aligned views of Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Mr. Vance’s laudatory remarks on Wednesday about the 10-year-old college, known as M.C.C., as a bastion of free thinking and common sense, however, stuck in the craw of Zalan Alkonyi, one of its researchers focused on Russia. The college, Mr. Alkonyi said in an interview at his book-filled home in Budapest, has many serious scholars, but it puts pressure on them to speak and publish in support of the government’s line.

“For years I had to practice severe self-censorship on Russia and the Russian policy of the Hungarian government,” said Mr. Alkonyi, 28.

He recounted feeling pressure to support, or at least not contradict, Mr. Orban’s view that Ukraine, not Russia, was the main threat to European security and that the European Union had been foolish in helping Kyiv resist Russian attack.
With Hungary about to hold a general election that could end Mr. Orban’s 16 years in power — an outcome that neither Washington nor Moscow wants — Mr. Alkonyi is among a growing list of defectors from institutions that the governing Fidesz party for years counted as loyal allies.

The latest of these was Viktor Norman Virag, a former senior member of the National Bureau of Investigation, who on Wednesday told Partizan, an opposition media outlet, that 80 percent of his work involved “meeting political expectations,” which in one case meant dropping a case against a Russian suspected of being a cybercriminal.

I considered myself a right-winger, too, but I’m not sure anymore,” he said. “I have a crisis of identity like the whole country.” “I decided to speak up about Russian interference,” he added, “because this is not a distant issue happening in Moldova or Georgia but in my own country.”

Deciding that Fidesz’s rule might not be eternal after all, Mr. Alkonyi last month put a Tisza banner on the balcony of his apartment overlooking a busy Budapest avenue. Shortly after that, he posted a message on Facebook denouncing “Russian intervention in the Hungarian elections” that he said was “unprecedented in the European Union in its methods and sophistication.” That directly contradicted the government’s line — reinforced by Mr. Vance in public statements during his visit to Hungary — that the only significant interference in the election has come from “bureaucrats” at the headquarters of the European Union in Brussels, and from President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.

As part of its election program, the opposition Tisza party has promised to claw back assets — primarily shares in a big state oil company — given to M.C.C. by the Fidesz government. The party says it will “end the practice of using public funds to build political networks.”