All of this is very much out of Orb\u00e1n\u2019s election playbook, according to Michael Ignatieff, the former Canadian politician. He has observed Hungarian politics up close as professor of history at the Central European University, formerly based in Budapest, until it was forced out by Orb\u00e1n, and is now headquartered in Vienna.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s always a risk you fall into a trap with Orb\u00e1n. He\u2019s fighting for his political life,\u201d Ignatieff told POLITICO. But he doesn\u2019t fault EU leaders for the stance they took last week. \u201cI\u2019m in no position to second-guess the Commission or the Council or anybody. The point to remember is that Orb\u00e1n has run against Brussels Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday for 16 years and cashed the checks on Saturday and Sunday. That\u2019s the play, right? I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything the EU can do one way or the other here. If it plays soft, he\u2019ll still play hard,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Orb\u00e1n\u2019s four previous election campaigns were all built around the idea of Hungary facing a dark and dangerous external threat, portraying himself as the man of destiny \u2014 the only one able to protect the beleaguered country surrounded by conniving enemies.<\/p>\n
Those foes have been variously faceless financial masters of the universe, international institutions, transnational left-wing elites and, of course, always the European Union. \u201cWe know all too well the nature of the uninvited helping comrades, and we recognize them even when instead of uniforms with epaulettes, they don well-tailored suits,\u201d Orb\u00e1n said once, when his controversial changes to Hungary\u2019s constitution were challenged by the EU.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While MAGA heavyweights have not been shy<\/a> in recent weeks to mobilize to shore up their most loyal European ideological ally \u2014 this week Reuters reported that U.S. Vice President JD Vance might be dispatched to Budapest<\/a> in a bid to give Orb\u00e1n an electoral lift. But EU leaders had until last week been more circumspect and careful to try to stay above the electoral fray to avoid being accused of election meddling.<\/p>\n \u2018Pyrrhic victory\u2019<\/p>\n While disputing that Orb\u00e1n in any way lured EU leaders into a trap, Fidesz MEP Andr\u00e1s L\u00e1szl\u00f3 conceded the clash might well help the Hungarian leader secure a fifth straight term as prime minister. \u201cMr. Orb\u00e1n actually kept his word. Isn\u2019t that what every citizen wants from politicians?\u201d And with a touch of sophistry, he told POLITICO: \u201cIt was not the reaction of EU partners which could help us in this election, it\u2019s the fact that Mr. Orb\u00e1n actually stood his ground and did not give in to the pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All of this is very much out of Orb\u00e1n\u2019s election playbook, according to Michael Ignatieff, the former Canadian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":842051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[33,2000,85516,299,5187,1699,2348,41727,2190,33183,601,27602,2452,11665,2661,5111,11854,15857,45,48,657,41982],"class_list":["post-842050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-elections","tag-eu","tag-eu-summit","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-european-union","tag-history","tag-hungarian-politics","tag-hungary","tag-jacques-chirac","tag-jd-vance","tag-margaret-thatcher","tag-media","tag-meps","tag-oil","tag-parliament","tag-peter-magyar","tag-pipelines","tag-playbook","tag-rights","tag-ukraine","tag-ulf-kristersson"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116270892615121799","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=842050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/842051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=842050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=842050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=842050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}