Hungary’s opposition struggles to beat Viktor Orban’s stealth autocracy
The populist prime minister has subverted nearly every institution that matters
THE RALLY stretched half a kilometre along the Danube, past Budapest’s Technical University where in 1956 students launched a doomed rebellion against their communist overlords. It was March 15th, the day Hungary commemorates its revolution of 1848. On the stage Peter Marki-Zay, the opposition candidate for prime minister, was invoking history. In 1848, 1956 and 1989, when the communists were finally ousted, Hungarians had been “on the right side”, he said. Now they were embarrassed by their country, which had become the fief of one man: Viktor Orban.
This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Last-ditch pitch”
From the April 2nd 2022 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionMore from Europe
François Hollande hopes to make the French left electable again
The former president moves away from the radicals
Germans are growing cold on the debt brake
Expect changes after the election
The Pope and Italy’s prime minister tussle over Donald Trump
Giorgia Meloni was the only European leader at the inauguration
Europe faces a new age of gunboat digital diplomacy
Can the EU regulate Donald Trump’s big tech bros?
Ukrainian scientists are studying downed Russian missiles
And learning a lot about sanctions-busting
How Poland emerged as a leading defence power
Will others follow?