Hungarian voters are called to the polls this Sunday, and these legislative elections have become a politically significant event with international repercussions. So much so that American Vice President J. D. Vance is leaving his country in the midst of the war in Iran for two days to dive into the Hungarian electoral arena.
The stakes are simple: it’s about saving soldier Orban. Viktor Orban, Hungarian Prime Minister continuously since 2010, is threatened in the polls by his rival Peter Magyar. Orban is not just the Prime Minister of a modest country of 10 million inhabitants in the center of Europe; he is primarily the embodiment of the European Union’s conquest project by so-called “patriotic” forces, meaning the far right.
Holy Alliance of the Far Right
This is an issue that greatly transcends the borders of the EU: Orban has the support of Moscow and Washington in this attempt to avoid a defeat with significant repercussions. Such a holy alliance would have seemed anachronistic just over a year ago; it does not surprise anyone in the current political and geopolitical alignment of the planets.
American Vice President meets Viktor Orban today, and more importantly, he will speak publicly in support of Prime Minister Fidesz’s party. This spectacular interference is not a surprise: J. D. Vance announced his intentions a year ago at the Munich Security Conference, shortly after Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
He criticized Europeans for selling their souls to immigration and wokeism. To demonstrate his choices on the eve of the German elections, he refused to meet the outgoing Prime Minister, Olaf Scholz, and preferred to meet the leader of the far-right AFD party, Alice Weidel. Last December, an official document from the Trump administration echoed this old tune, considering the rise of so-called “patriotic” forces as Europe’s only hope.
A Test for Other Far-Right Parties in Europe
Vance arrives at a decisive moment in the campaign. Serbia announced the discovery of explosives on a pipeline connecting its territory to Hungary, and Budapest tacitly accuses Ukraine. But the head of the Serbian secret services distanced himself from this accusation, and the Hungarian opposition speaks of a “false flag”, a term that denotes a hoax, a setup to influence voters. The arrival of the Vice President in this context is electric.
But the question arises: is the support of the Trump administration a gift at this time, given the unpopularity of the war in Iran and Donald Trump in European opinions? Orban is going all-in by seeking cheap gas from Moscow and receiving J. D. Vance’s blessing.
This will surely serve as a test for other far-right parties in Europe. Marine Le Pen, who was in Budapest two weeks ago to support Orban, does she really want to align with Trump and his entourage? Even Giorgia Meloni in Italy has distanced herself from the war in Iran, and the German AFD has asked its executives to reduce contacts with MAGA, pro-Trump Americans. For all these reasons, Sunday’s vote is of paramount importance.
