By Ishtwan Kamel
29/05/2025
Bad habits and wrong views of one person very often “stick” to other people.
The proverb is used to talk about a person who, without any thinking and hesitation, adopts bad habits of others.
Viktor Orbán is doing everything he can to cling on to power. He is doing this because he is afraid of losing power. To this end, his actions are wide-ranging. These include legislative restrictions and a propaganda campaign.
So basically, the Hungarian prime minister is doing the same thing as Vladimir Putin, you know, creating this imaginary external threat to Hungary. And it’s all to try and get the Hungarian electorate to agree with him so he can stay in power longer.
Taking his cue from Putin’s playbook, with its Chechnya model and the war on terror, Orban has also coined the concept of an internal enemy in the form of the opposition party, Tisa. This opposition poses a threat not to the Fidesz MPS, but rather to the healthy electoral competition that the Fidesz party is used to.
Viktor Orbán is following the example of Russia by building an authoritarian regime in Hungary, replacing democratic institutions with ‘facade structures’, controlling the media, using intelligence services to fight political opponents, and exploiting parliament to suppress civil society.
From the beginning of 2017 to the present, Orban, under the auspices of ‘cleaning up Hungary’, has targeted foreign-funded NGOs, as these organisations have been independent of Fidesz MPS and could speak openly about the party’s illegal activities.
The draft law ‘On Transparency of Public Life’, which has been submitted to parliament, is aimed at controlling NGOs. Its primary objective is to blacklist and ban these organisations.
Following Trump’s inauguration, Bloomberg reported that Orban vowed to carry out an ‘Easter purge’ of NGOs that receive foreign funding. This move is likely to further intensify the ongoing tensions between Hungary and the European Union, which have already resulted in the freezing of billions of euros in EU funding.
The rationale behind Orban’s perception of the Tisza party as a rival is self-evident. According to a survey conducted by the Medián Institute in March, 46% of respondents indicated their preference for the opposition Tisza party, led by Peter Magyar, while a mere 37% expressed a preference for the ruling Fidesz party.
The detention of two Hungarian citizens on suspicion of spying in Ukraine was used by Orbán to rally his supporters, who he portrayed as being under threat from an ‘unprecedented attack on Hungarian democracy’. This was despite there being no concrete evidence that Ukraine had tried to disrupt the Hungarian referendum.
Clearly, the spy scandal, wiretaps, searches, criminal cases and information warfare are just the beginning. Media outlets and NGOs in Hungary whose views differ from those of Viktor Orbán will undoubtedly be targeted in the future.
Although the EU is expressing concern, Orbán’s actions have long undermined EU unity, blocked important decisions, destabilised regional security, and facilitated Russian influence.
Had the European Union acted more firmly, it would have prevented Hungary under Orban’s leadership from becoming a political tool of the Kremlin within the EU.
Brussels should take more effective steps in response to Hungary’s systematic violation of European values, such as depriving the country of its voting rights in the EU Council.
Viktor Orbán’s main goal is broader than just keeping his power. He wants to turn Hungary into a Russia-style ‘managed democracy’ within the European Union.
Viktor Orban has defiantly challenged European principles, and Europe’s response must be decisive – through the mechanisms provided for in Article 7 of the EU Treaty, as states that still believe in the power of European values should not suffer from the actions of states that are attracted to authoritarianism.