Is time up for Viktor Orban?
For a country of ten million people that spent most of the 20th century occupied and impoverished, Hungary today is thriving. This, in the eyes of his supporters, is down to the 16-year rule of Viktor Orban. Hungary’s Prime Minister has, to use his phrasing, aimed to create an ‘illiberal democracy’. He has reformed the country’s judiciary, given tax breaks to mothers to increase the birth rate and zealously resisted the EU’s refugee policies. The last is illustrated by the 140-mile fence along the Serbian border constructed during the 2015 migration crisis. Proud border guards tell you that 1.1 million migrants have been kept out in a decade. Nevertheless, Orban faces his toughest election yet when Hungarians go to the polls this Sunday.
