Analysis | Conspiracy theories about billionaire George Soros take centre-stage in Hungarian election
Since regaining power eight years ago, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has built a self-styled illiberal state modelled on Russia, with a fragmented opposition and a relentless focus on the threat of immigration, which he says is being promoted by Hungarian-born billionaire George Soros
After eight years of bending this nation to his increasingly autocratic and illiberal will, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has only a smattering of disorganised opposition parties to overcome on the road to winning four more in elections next month.
But in his own telling, he is locked in an epochal struggle with a far more worthy competitor: a shadowy international puppet-master whose dangerous ideas and limitless resources put him on par with the great invaders and occupiers defeated across centuries of Hungarian history.
“We sent home the [Ottoman] sultan with his army, the Habsburg kaiser with his raiders and the Soviets with their comrades,” Orban thundered to an adoring crowd of more than 100,000 people in central Budapest last week.
“Now we will send home Uncle George.”
George Soros, that is.
With his left-wing views and deep pockets, the 87-year-old New York-based financier and philanthropist has in recent years become the ultimate bogeyman for far-right ideologues, demagogic despots, tin-hat conspiracy theorists and anti-Semites the world over.
But nothing compares to the intimacy and intensity with which he is now being assailed in his native land. As Hungary’s parliamentary campaign enters its final weeks, Orban has made attacks on his one-time benefactor the centrepiece of his re-election campaign.