Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban yesterday said that his landslide re-election had given him a powerful mandate to restrict migrant rights and seek an EU of independent nations rather than a “United States of Europe.”
The right-wing nationalist leader, whose resounding victory on Sunday sent shockwaves through opposition parties, also said he planned to revamp his government.
“I will set up a new government, in a large part with new people and a new structure,” he said, without going into detail.
Photo: Reuters
Orban won a third straight term in power in Sunday elections after his anti-immigration campaign message solidified a strong majority for his party in parliament, granting him two-thirds of the seats based on preliminary results.
“We have received a strong mandate,” the 54-year-old prime minister told his first news conference since his election triumph, which has triggered the resignation of Gabor Vona, leader of the main opposition Jobbik party in parliament.
“The Hungarian people have defined the most important issues: These are the question of immigration and national sovereignty,” Orban said.
“It is entirely clear ... from the election result that Hungarians have decided that only they can decide with whom they want to live in Hungary, and the government will stick to this position,” he said.
His Fidesz party on Monday signaled that it could push on with legislation to crack down on organizations promoting migrant rights as soon as parliament reconvenes.
The government’s “Stop Soros” bill submitted to parliament before the election would impose a 25 percent tax on foreign donations to non-governmental organizations that the government says back migration in Hungary.
“Stop Soros” refers to Hungarian-born US billionaire George Soros, whose funding of liberal democratic, open-border causes in Europe has made him a major adversary of Orban.
“The election in my view also ... decided that the Hungarian government must stand up for a Europe of nations and not for a ‘United States of Europe,’” said Orban, an opponent of deeper integration within the EU.
Orban added that he would cultivate deeper relations with nationalist-ruled Poland and the conservative German region of Bavaria in his new term in office, because of their direct support for his re-election bid.
In related news, one of Hungary’s two national opposition dailies is to shut down tomorrow due to financial problems, its publisher said, in a sign of rapidly deteriorating prospects for media freedom after Orban’s landslide victory.
The closure of Magyar Nemzet will be a milestone in the gradual disappearance of independent media in Hungary that western EU leaders and international rights groups say underlines the nation’s slide into authoritarianism.
The 80-year-old daily is owned by tycoon Lajos Simicska, once an ally of Orban who fell out with him and became one of his staunchest opponents in the election campaign.
Simicska’s media holdings, once highly profitable, incurred heavy losses after he fell out with Orban and his publications were deprived of government advertising.
“Due to the financing problems of Magyar Nemzet, the owners have decided to cease media content production activity from April 11, 2018. Therefore Magyar Nemzet and its online version mno.hu will close,” the publisher said in on its Web site.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the