Viktor Orbán's anti-woke resistance has made him the 'splinter under the fingernail' of the EU
Hungary’s parliament will convene an emergency session on Monday to do something its western partners have waited for, often impatiently, for more than a year: to hold a vote, finally, on approving Sweden’s bid to join the NATO military alliance.
But Hungary’s governing party, led by nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, has signaled that it will boycott the session, blocking the chance for a vote and further delaying a decision on Stockholm’s bid. It’s the kind of obstruction of key policy objectives for which Orbán has become notorious within the European Union.
“We are the sand in the machinery, the stick between the spokes, the splinter under the fingernail,” Orbán said in a speech to tens of thousands of supporters in 2021.
That “stick between the spokes” tactic, and Orbán’s role as Europe’s perennial spoiler, has brought the EU to breaking point time and again as he has blocked crucial decisions to leverage concessions from the bloc, forcing its leaders to scramble to find workarounds.
How would Hungarian know how to remove him? Imagine Fox News being the ONLY available broadcaster in the country. 24/7 spouting EU bad, immigrants bad, King Orbán good. There is no escaping it, the government is in full control of the media.
If you look at the map, 2/3 of the country is rural, 1/3 is Budapest (and some other major cities). And that's exactly how they vote every time too. Budapest is a bastion of enlightenment, but the rest is just dark ages.
That, plus not just the TV channels but all the radio channels, printed media and billboards. And guess who has the most money for online propaganda
In addition to that have you seen how difficult it is to vote if you’re a Hungarian national Living out side the country. Or if you are in the country during a vote and your id card says you live abroad you can’t vote locally but have to vote abroad. He’s rigged the game so him and the Fidesz party can live fat and everyone else that lives there just gets by without any real improvement to their life. Dude played the game and stacked the deck in his favor and I honestly do not know how change can come to Hungary. Even if he is no longer in government or passes he would just be replaced by one of his cronies.