Hungary’s Viktor Orbán Sees Re-Election Hopes Fading

HÓDMEZŐVÁSÁRHELY, Hungary—Just off the main square of this picturesque provincial city, a crowd braced against a cold spring wind as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán took the stage for a re-election rally. Within seconds, a chorus of boos erupted.

“I see our opponents are here,” he said above the noise, before launching into a speech heavy on his longtime grievances against the European Union and a more recent fight he has picked with neighboring Ukraine.

For more than a decade, Orbán has styled himself a champion of ordinary Hungarians and a forefather of the international conservative movement, cultivating relationships with Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin and President Trump.

But in places such as this that once saw the promise of prosperity in Orbán’s Fidesz Party, many voters have turned their backs. Ahead of elections on April 12, anger has grown over a moribund economy and what some critics see as a corrupt system that enriches those close to the prime minister. Orbán, they say, has consolidated his control over most levers of power in the country and has few new ideas for its future.

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