Cyberattack on Hungarian opposition primary?

An alliance of Hungarian opposition parties has come together with the goal of nominating a joint candidate to unseat Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party in the 2022 parliamentary elections. But on Saturday, the very first day of the week-long first round of voting, the process had to be interrupted due to problems with the IT system. The ruling party denies accusations that it hacked the computers. Commentators are divided.

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Népszava (HU) /

Good reason for concern

The preconditions for abuse of power certainly exist, Népszava believes:

“Both common sense and the Pegasus case, which could not be investigated because of the government, tell us that those in power have such a huge technical advantage against the opposition (and society) that this cannot be compensated for either by civil society or by the political opposition.”

Magyar Hírlap (HU) /

Always the others who are to blame

The opposition parties should simply admit their incompetence, the pro-government newspaper Magyar Hírlap scoffs:

“First [the opposition parties] explained the mistake citing the huge interest in the election, then they evoked a Chinese hacker attack. Finally it emerged that the system had never been tested while in operation. But the supposedly 'true' explanation was not long in coming: nasty Fidesz was behind it all, of course. ... Let's recall the 2018 parliamentary election, when the system was not accessible for an hour: the same politicians were screaming about electoral fraud back then. Now they've organised this election themselves. The result is obvious: they have failed miserably.”