COTTonLINE’s favorite commenter on foreign affairs - George Friedman - writes that there have been large demonstrations in Hungary focused on government corruption. What he finds interesting about these is that the Orban government did not repress them. I have the same feeling.
Conventional wisdom in the WEF-hugging portion of the commentariat is that Viktor Orban is an authoritarian, a near-dictator in fact if not officially. Friedman writes:
Authoritarians govern by power and fear, so any demonstration that could appear to confer weakness on the regime must be put down. In such a government, when demonstrations like this take place, the police try to crush them through direct action and mass arrests. Orban has made no such move. I doubt he is relaxed, but he has done everything possible to show citizens that they have the right to speak their minds en masse. He has taken the view that the issue will resolve itself.
Orban’s reluctance to use force is partly due to the nature of his government and partly due to his desire to show that the European Union has misrepresented him – and that, importantly, he is correct to keep Hungary at a comfortable distance from the institution.
Friedman notes that the demonstrations were against old-fashioned “corruption,” politicians enriching themselves at the public’s expense. What they explicitly were not against were Hungary’s socially conservative values that conflict with those of Brussels and the EU.
I conclude from Friedman’s report that Orban’s Hungary is nationalist, favoring what is widely believed to be best for Hungarians, particularly when it differs from what the EU (aka “the institution”) wants for Europe as a whole.
I would add that a couple of years ago when the DrsC were briefly in Hungary we saw no evidence of a police state. Budapest street life looked absolutely indistinguishable from other European cities.
