State of the nation address: Orbán fishing for votes

The West, overrun by migrants and ruled by ignorant politicians, will collapse: Hungary's prime minister Viktor Orbán peppered his state of the nation address with nationalist and xenophobic slogans. The 54-year-old is running for a third term in elections in April and his Fidesz party is at around 50 percent in the polls. Hungary's press is divided between applause and concern.

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888.hu (HU) /

The better alternative to Euro blah blah

Journalist László Bertha applauds Orbán's achievements on the pro-government news website 888.hu:

“Unprecedented economic success, a stable government, uncompromising defence of national interests and values and huge gains in terms of prestige for the country: perhaps this is the best way to sum up what the government has achieved in the last few years. ... Orbán's words 'For us Hungary comes first!' couldn't be more accurate regarding his term of office. ... The prime minister also stressed that Hungary has discarded contemptible political correctness - or in other words the meaningless Euro blah blah and empty liberal euphemisms. Unlike Brussels and Berlin, Budapest speaks in plain terms nowadays.”

hvg (HU) /

God preserve us from more years under Orbán!

Orbán has set up a centralised system in which he is the all-powerful ruler, sociologist György Marosán writes in the opposition weekly hvg:

“The Orbán government can rely on a stable parliamentary majority. It can impose its will without debates or opposing views; all social opposition has virtually vanished. The system of checks and balances has been annulled. Orbán alone confers legitimacy nowadays, meaning that he also has the oligarchs on a string. Whatever Orbán comes up with becomes the central will. ... As a consequence, institutionally Hungary is on the same level as it was back in 1989. God preserve us from more years under Orbán! From now on the opposition's goal in elections must always be to bring about a political transformation.”