Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán
Abuse in a juvenile detention center, toxic dust from a battery factory and an alleged sex video involving the opposition leader — Hungary’s election race has been dominated by one scandal after another.
Hungary is no stranger to extremely polarized election campaigns.
For decades, Viktor Orbán — whether in government or in opposition — has followed the same strategy: months before elections, he runs campaigns that suggest the stakes are high. the very survival of the Hungarian nation.
In these campaigns, he presents himself as the only one capable of saving Hungary and its people from evil and the threat of destruction at the hands of the country’s enemies.
Hungary will elect a new parliament April 12 and this time, the campaign is more negative than ever.
Absurdities and inventions
Orbán, his government and his party, Fidesz, do not hesitate to spread thousands and thousands of anti-Ukrainian posters around the countryuse taxpayers’ money to organize a “national petition” against the EU and Ukraine, and flood social media with fake AI-generated videos about the opposition.
These videos have something in common: they spread absurdities and inventions. The prime minister and his team are basically stating that if Orbán loses the elections, the country will face warmobilization on the Ukrainian front, and mass enslavement and impoverishment as a result of tax increases coming from Brussels.
In the face of this particularly extreme campaign, Gabor Torok — a generally sober political scientist — has already spoken about the “decline and fall” of political culture.
Could Orbán lose the election?
The reason for this downward spiral is simply the real possibility that Orbán losing power for the first time since 2010.
People, in general, are tired of what they consider to be Orbán’s corrupt, arrogant and autocratic system.
It’s been months since Peter Hungarian and its opposition party, Tisza, have clearly and consistently led in opinion polls.
At the same time, the prime minister and his government face the consequences of a series of self-inflicted public scandals, which could easily be classified as “lies and double standards”.
Child abuse scandal
The first of these scandals concerns the serious violence and sexual abuse of minors in a juvenile detention center in Budapest. New aspects of the story have gradually come to light in recent months.
The center, which was practically a brutal prison for young delinquents, was closed. Leaked videos showed shocking scenes of violence by local employees.
Government representatives had apparently knowledge of conditions in the detention center for a long time, but they did nothing, although the protection of children — combined with homophobia — is a central theme for Orbán’s government. In fact, the government likes to claim that it is protecting Hungarian children from “Brussels LGBTQ+ propaganda” and the alleged abuse that this would entail.
Orbán and some members of his government and party also appeared to suggest a few weeks ago that the victims themselves were responsiblehighlighting that they were criminals.
In doing so, they seemed to imply that civil and human rights could be arbitrarily revoked. This was met with even greater opposition from some sectors of Hungarian society.
Ignoring health risks in a battery factory
Earlier this week, Hungary was rocked by revelations about environmental and health risks at a Samsung battery factory in God, a town north of Budapest.
According to an investigation conducted by Hungarian news site Telex.hu, employees at the factory spent years exposed to toxic heavy metal particlesand this dust was released into the air, soil and groundwater. The documents show that in some cases the levels were more than 500 times higher than permitted limits.
The Hungarian government was apparently aware of this. It is alleged that even the Hungarian domestic intelligence agency, AH, alerted the government to the catastrophic situation. Even so, it appears that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Peter Szijjarto, prevented the closure of the factory.
There are also reports that when the anti-corruption website Atlatszo.hu first published a report on the issue in early 2024, the government considered how best to silence the site.
The story is so explosive because Orbán’s government has been pushing the massive development of battery production in Hungary and considers it a pillar of the country’s progressive economic and technological policy.
To achieve this objective, Chinese and South Korean investors were attracted. Despite numerous local protests, lawsuits, and concerns voiced by experts, the government has repeatedly proceeded with its plans.
Scandal with possible sex video
And then comes the story of a alleged sex video involving opposition leader Peter Magyar, which left the Hungarian public in suspense.
A few days ago, a black and white photo of an unmade bed in a bedroom appeared on a mysterious website named after — but not owned by — Mark Radnai, deputy leader of the Tisza party. The image was taken from the perspective of what appears to be a security camera.
After days of speculation, Magyar himself published a video on Facebook about the photo on February 12th. In it, he claimed to have had “consensual sexual relations” with an ex-girlfriend in that room on August 3, 2024. He also said there were drugs on a table in the apartment, but he had not consumed any.
Initially, Magyar accused the woman in question of filming him in this situation at the behest of the Orbán government and Fidesz, and said that it was all just a “Russian-style campaign” to divert attention from the “death factory” in God. Soon after, his ex-girlfriend declared to the Hungarian media that she knew nothing and suggested to Magyar that, if the video was published, they could file a complaint together.
Fidesz no longer dominates
So far, neither Orbán nor any other member of the government or Fidesz has commented on whether the publication of an intimate video involving Magyar was planned.
By addressing the issue directly, Magyar has put authorities on the defensive, indirectly demonstrating that they are willing — for fear of losing power — to loop through primitive methodssuch as publishing an intimate video, to divert attention from other scandals.
In an interview with the program “Campaign Noise Filter”, on DW’s Hungarian service, political scientist Daniel Mikecz stated that scandals like this are causing increase pressure on the government of Orbán.
“Before one scandal calms down, another one emerges,” he said, adding that “Fidesz used to say that they had to dominate and win every day. Now we see that they have to react to something every day.” We no longer talk about domination.”
