What Comes Next For Hungary?Fidesz just won its biggest majority ever, but what does the party plan to do with it? I sat down with Balázs Orbán to find out.
BRADLEY DEVLIN
APRIL 12, 2022
Two days after the Hungarian people delivered Fidesz yet another two-thirds majority in parliament on April 3, I sat down with Balázs Orbán, one of the top advisors to Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister now entering his fourth consecutive term, to discuss the significance of another overwhelming electoral victory.
Orbán (of no relation to Viktor) wears many different hats. Not only is he one of the prime minister’s top advisors, he also serves as the chairman of the Mathias Corvinus Collegium’s board of trustees, sits on the board of Hungary’s National University of Public Service, and is an author and columnist. He has a law degree and a masters of laws in public administration. From time to time, he can be found grabbing a quick meal or meeting with students and faculty at MCC’s Scruton Cafe—named after the late English conservative philosopher.
It was a fitting place for the two of us—me, not all that far removed from my time as an undergrad, and Orbán, out of convenience for his busy schedule—to sit down, take a breath, and parse out what had just happened. A large, sage-green bookshelf packed with books in Hungarian and English from conservative thinkers and politicians, some better than others, separates the cafe from the rest of the commons. Where there were no books, the shelves were scattered with plaster busts of the cafe’s namesake. Opposite the bookshelf, a stage for various speaking events, and at the back, a bar to order food and drink. Orange, blue, and green accents—though I’m unsure if Scruton himself would like them—give the place a pop of color.
Despite Western media’s claims that 2022 could be the year the opposition could take Fidesz and Prime Minister Orbán out of power, the Hungarian people handed Fidesz the largest governing mandate it has ever had, holding 135 of the 199 seats in parliament, outperforming even the rosiest of expectations.
Orbán told me he was pleasantly surprised with the results. “My bet was 129,” he said with a slight grin. “The Fidesz majority is bigger than in 2010, 2014, or 2018,” he added. I can see him fighting to hold back an even bigger smile.
“So, what is Fidesz going to do with this even bigger majority?” I ask.
His initial answer was short: “We’re going to try and continue our policies.”
Orbán went on to add, “It’s a huge majority, a constitutional majority, but that itself is not the goal.”
“It’s just a tool to reach your goals because it’s not about power, it’s about serving the interests of the people in a quite risky international environment,” he elaborated. “And if you can bring a constitutional majority behind your ideas, if you can secure your way of understanding of the constitution, it makes things easier because the state and the country is not so divided as in some of the other western societies. The problem with some of these other western societies is that it is almost impossible to change the constitution and those in charge of interpreting the constitution have huge amounts of power.”
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Source:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/what-comes-next-for-hungary/
