Analysis | Hungary expected to grant third term to fiercely nationalistic Prime Minister Viktor Orban
Viktor Orban, standing for a third successive term as Hungary’s prime minister on Sunday, is best known outside the country for being at the forefront of the deepening division between the European Union’s eastern and western members
The rally was a curious blend of kitsch and gravitas: plastic flags, unwieldy crucifixes and pop lyrics extolling the virtues of blood and soil. But this is Europe in 2018.
Viktor Orban, Hungary’s prime minister, mounted the podium to the sound of screams and raucous applause.
For months now, so much of Orban’s rhetoric has focused on how faraway bureaucrats and bogeymen have subverted Hungary’s national interests to line the coffers of what he couches as an international financial conspiracy, a rhetorical line some see as little more than a modern remake of an anti-Semitic trope.
Yet it would be a mistake to cast his victory on Sunday – almost a foregone conclusion – merely as an internal assault on the European consensus, even if that is the result.
In the minds of many of Orban’s supporters, Sunday’s election was less a rally against the EU as it was a battle of European visions.