Hungary Elections Stir New Fears and Trigger Protests

The political currents fueling the growth of nationalism in Central Europe will be emboldened as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán settles in for a third term, say political observers. But mass protests in the early days since his April 8 election victory show strong public opposition remains as critics say Orban is moving the country toward an autocratic state.

Orbán and his Fidesz party rode a platform of anti-immigration ideas to silence their critics and systemically eliminate independent media. It is a strategy that won his party two-thirds of Parliament in the most-recent elections -- good enough for a supermajority -- and has helped Orbán become the second-longest serving leader in Europe -- behind Angela Merkel of Germany -- and one of the region's most powerful.

"For the EU, the real threat is not the migration crisis Viktor Orbán has used to become popular, but how he has used the crisis to change the country's democracy," says Tamas Boros, co-director of the Policy Solutions think-tank. "The most important chapter now is the decline of democracy."

With right-wing populists already leading other Central European countries including Poland, Austria and the Czech Republic, Boros says Orbán has become a "hero" for an anti-establishment faction that has been left feeling marginalized by the European Union.

"Now, we will see an increased divide in political values while illiberal democracies will continue to grow in Central and Eastern Europe," Boros says. "More and more, politicians will replicate Orban because they see him as the best example of how to hold on to power."

During a recent tour of Europe, Steve Bannon, the former executive chairman of Breitbart news and U.S. President Donald Trump's former political strategist, has described Orbán as "the most significant guy on the scene right now" with the nationalist movement spreading to other parts of the continent. Last month, Italy's anti-establishment League party, an ally of Orbán's, made gains in elections on the back of the migration crisis and distrust of the political establishment.

In the days since winning the election, Orbán declared a mandate to more aggressively clamp down on asylum-seekers in Europe by opposing European integration, while also cultivating deeper ties with the region's other right-wing parties.

"The election, in my view... decided that the Hungarian government must stand up for a Europe of nations and not for a 'United States of Europe,'" Orbán said at an April 10 news conference.

Orbán's moves come despite the elections being marred by allegations that Fidesz misappropriated state funds and resources to support its campaign in order to gain an upper hand.

"It's not only the fact that the government is playing a role that we believe crosses a line that is contradicting international standards where you should have a clear division between party and state, it is also to some extent undermining the campaign finance regime which should ensure that all campaign financing is transparent," says Douglas Wake, head of the election observation mission from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Public anger over alleged election and government improprieties have pushed Orbán's opponents to stage two mass protests. The demonstrations on April 14 and April 21 each drew tens of thousands of people onto the streets of the Hungarian capital of Budapest. Protesters have criticized government moves to assert greater control over the media and independent institutions while challenging the results of the April elections and have called for a recount and new election laws.

Still, Orbán has signaled that he will move swiftly to tighten the grip on his own country by pressing ahead with new laws that could bar civil society actors his government deems to be supportive of immigrants.

The legislation package known as the "Stop Soros" laws is named after Hungarian-born American George Soros, the investor, philanthropist and activist who has been branded an enemy by Orbán. The legislation was introduced to parliament in February and could bar NGOs from entering the country and tax those already on the ground.

While a government spokesman has said they expect to start working on passing the laws next month, the Open Society Foundations, the international grant-making network founded by Soros, says it will continue to work for "as long as it is legally possible."

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"The laws the government had threatened to pass are not about George Soros and the Open Society Foundations. Their aim is to criminalize civil society," the foundation said in a statement.

Gauri van Gulik, Europe director of Amnesty International, another organization operating in Hungary, said that requiring NGOs to pay taxes to a government that suppresses the rights of immigrants would effectively force groups to withdraw from the country.

"If we have to abide by a law that requires us to directly fund the government and its incredibly regressive and violating laws against refugees, we would never do it," she says. "Essentially, Hungary is making threats that they are going to shut us down if we don't comply with this."

Foreign funded non-governmental organizations are not the only ones at risk. Since taking power in 2010, most of Hungary's independent media have either been bought by Orbán's allies or have been forced to shut down due to financial pressures created by the government.

"Unfortunately, this is one of the things I expect is going to get worse," says Balazs Jarabik, a nonresident scholar of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Europe think-tank. "The independent media are already in trouble."

The situation has already worsened as one of Hungary's oldest and most popular conservative newspapers, Magyar Nemzet, was forced to close in mid-April, citing financial reasons. Lanchid Radio, a broadcaster associated with Magyar Nemzet's parent company, is also slated to close.

"Nobody was expecting a closure and when we heard the news my colleagues were crying. It was like in a funeral -- everyone was looking straight and not talking -- just staring straight," says Lukacs Csaba, a senior editor and 18-year veteran at Magyar Nemzet, recounting the newspaper's last meeting.

With 150 staffers now out of work and only a few independent outlets remaining, Csaba says most of his former colleagues will likely leave journalism.

"The market is too narrow for absorbing so many journalists and we have a target on our heads because we stood against the government. That target will follow many of us and it will be impossible to get a job ... if you were with the 'enemy'."

The continued repression of Hungary's free media in conjunction with Orban's crackdown on civil society has drawn outrage from the European Parliament's Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs committee. On April 12 the committee asked members of the European Parliament to trigger Article 7 proceedings that would limit Hungary's rights in the EU.

"Time and time again, Viktor Orbán's government has undermined the independence of the judiciary, freedom of the press and the fundamental rights of its citizens. When countries join the EU, they make a commitment to our shared values of respect for human rights, democracy and rule of law," Dutch Green Party MEP Judith Sargentini said in a statement.

With the battle lines drawn, some civil society actors say that their futures will be decided on whether the European Union, which has been passive on Hungary of late, will finally take a stronger stand.

"We are not going to stop talking about refugees and migrants, so (the government) will have to follow through with their threats and we will see if the European Union and the European People's Party that Orbán is part of is going to stand up for these civil society groups," Gulik says.

Philip Heijmans is a journalist based in Prague, Czech Republic. You can follow him on Twitter here.