Opposition protesters gather outside the Russian-owned International Investment Bank in Budapest to demonstrate against Russian president Vladimir Putin \u00a9 Janos Kummer\/Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\nMeanwhile, anecdotal evidence suggests that despite years of messaging from the ruling Fidesz party, many older voters who lived under Soviet domination until the collapse of Communism in 1989 remain sensitive to threats from the east.<\/p>\n
\u201cI used to vote for Orban, but his love of Putin always unnerved me,\u201d said Albert Kovacs, a retired public servant, speaking at a demonstration by about 2,000 opposition protesters outside the Budapest headquarters of Russia\u2019s International Investment Bank earlier this week. . \u201cIt\u2019s high time to end that love affair. Make no mistake: the Russians have smelled blood. I lived most of my life under Russian influence and I am not returning there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The opposition is seeking to capitalise on Orban\u2019s previous warmth towards Moscow, saying the premier has left Hungary open for \u201cRussian spies\u201d. Marki-Zay has called Orban \u201cPutin\u2019s poodle\u201d and has advocated a much less ambivalent stance towards the EU, following years of antagonism between Budapest and Brussels.<\/p>\n
The premier \u201cfirst supported everything [Russian president Vladimir] Putin did, then lo and behold, he declared Putin an aggressor,\u201d Marki-Zay told the crowd outside the bank. \u201cWe demand that he stop his policy of neither here nor there and more Hungary once and for all in the west, Europe, Nato.\u201d<\/p>\n
Orban has now backed fast-tracking Ukraine\u2019s EU membership and international sanctions against Russia. But he has said Budapest would stand by a cheap Russian gas supply deal \u201cas long as I am premier\u201d and remains opposed to Hungary\u2019s participation in military support.<\/p>\n
Even with the Russian invasion well under way, Orban has also defended Paks 2, Hungary\u2019s \u20ac12.5bn finance-and-build agreement with Russia\u2019s state nuclear monopoly Rosatom for a new nuclear power plant. Fidesz MEPs last week approved a European parliament resolution banning any co-operation with Rosatom, which could effectively kill the project, only for the premier again to defend Paks in a subsequent interview.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, as Fidesz struggles to maintain its balancing act between Moscow and the west, deputy prime minister Zsolt Semjen signalled Ukraine should be in the sphere of neither. Ukraine\u2019s sovereignty and integrity was important for it to be \u201ca buffer state between the Russian empire and the EU\u201d, he told a recent campaign rally.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Ukraine was a member of Nato, we would already have a world war on our hands,\u201d Semjen was quoted as saying by news website telex.hu.<\/p>\n
Gabor Torok, an independent political analyst, said the war was a headache for Fidesz. \u201cFor the first time in [years] Fidesz voters are divided over a key issue,\u201d he said. It would be difficult for Orban to balance maintaining friendly relations with Moscow while keeping Hungary within the Nato and EU fold, he added.<\/p>\n
Orban is not yet cornered politically: his new narrative, in which he presents Hungary\u2019s reluctance to extend military aid to Ukraine or admit Kyiv to Nato as serving the cause of peace, has resonated with voters, analysts say.<\/p>\n
More than two-thirds of Hungarians want the country to stay out of the conflict completely, according to the Euronews poll \u2014 in line with Orban\u2019s policy.<\/p>\n
But despite Fidesz efforts to reframe the narrative, voters remain confused and the party is losing its sense of direction amid the sudden change of rhetoric, said Laszlo. \u201cFidesz had pummelled the message of \u2018there will be no war, we will defend cheap energy\u2019 so intensely that they have a hard time reversing it,\u201d Laszlo said. \u201cThat can and does cause a credibility deficit.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Marton Dunai in Budapest MARCH 6 2022 As elections approach, prime minister is strugglin Viktor Orban has long delighted in displaying some of the EU\u2019s clearest pro-Russia credentials. Now war in Ukraine is forcing Hungary\u2019s prime minister to shift his position as he tries to stay in step with voters a month before the country\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13211"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13211"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13213,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13211\/revisions\/13213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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