The elections for the European Parliament are scheduled for June 9 in Hungary (the same date as in Portugal) and these days large political posters can already be seen in Budapest with the image of the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, sitting in an armchair together with Órban’s opponents characterized as waiters, who read “humble servants of Brussels” on issues such as “migration, gender and war”.
Created by the national-conservative party Fidesz, which has been in power in Hungary for 14 years, the cartels bring together Órban’s ‘rivals’ such as the popular leader of the new Respect and Freedom party (TISZA), Péter Magyar, the former socialist prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsany, socialist MEP Klára Dobrev and the mayor of Budapest elected by the Greens Gergely Karácsony.
But despite Péter Magyar being a recent name on these posters, none of the topics covered are surprising to association officials, including the coordinator of the Háttér project (representative of LGBT people in Hungary), who almost resignedly admits to Lusa in Budapest that “the government has used these posters as a communication trick to create unrealistic fears and say that they will save the population”.
For Vivien Vadasi, legal consultant at the Hungarian Association for Migrants Menedék, these large posters, which contrast with the small posters of opposition parties, only aim to create “white noise” among the population, who nowadays “no longer care”.
In the Hungarian conservative wing, these types of messages are not seen as anti-democratic, but rather “a sovereignist approach” to “the demands of the European Union”, says the executive director of the College Mathias Corvinus in Brussels, Frank Füredi.
Former communist and now democratic populist, Frank Füredi argues that “people did not ask for mass migration or the integration of gender identity in politics”.
The Secretary of State for International Communication, Zoltán Kovács, also says in an interview with Lusa that the only issues at stake are “rules that have to be followed” for regular migration, sex change only after the age of 18 and a focus on peace instead of war.
This is not the view of researcher Zsuzsanna Szelenyi, who began her career as a member of the Fidesz party and left it when Órban assumed leadership. Speaking to Lusa in Budapest, the analyst describes this as “very unpleasant government propaganda” in which “millions of taxpayers’ euros” are spent to ensure “dominance” of political posters, pay pro-government influencers and limit access to opposition in the media space.
Even though Fidesz spreads the idea that Hungary is “a pro-family country”, particularly in other posters placed