Viktor Orbán is a Hungarian politician known for having established an autocracy in his country, ruling it from increasingly centralized manner since assuming the position of prime minister for the second time in 2010. Political scientists define Hungary as an electoral autocracy, but Orbán defines his country as an illiberal democracy.
The politician became nationally known for a speech against the socialist government and Soviet influence in Hungary in the late 1980s. He participated in the founding of Fidesz, now a reactionary conservative party, and was elected Prime Minister of Hungary for the first time in 1998.
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Topics of this article
- 1 - Summary about Viktor Orbán
- 2 - Youth of Viktor Orbán
- 3 - Viktor Orbán's political trajectory
- 4 - Return of Viktor Orbán to power in Hungary
Summary about Viktor Orbán
Viktor Orbán is a Hungarian politician who has served as Prime Minister since 2010.
He established an autocracy in Hungary by undermining national democratic institutions.
Orbán gained notoriety in politics in the late 1980s, when he criticized socialism and the Soviet Union.
He was Prime Minister in a first term between 1998 and 2002.
He holds reactionary, homophobic and xenophobic positions.
Do not stop now... There's more after the publicity ;)
Youth of Viktor Orbán
Viktor Mihály Orbán he was born on May 31, 1963, in the town of Székesfehérvár, in Hungary. An important fact about the birth of Viktor Orbán is that at the time of his birth, his country was governed by the socialists and was part of the socialist bloc under the control of the Soviet Union.
Orbán's father was an entrepreneur and agronomist named Győző Orbán and his mother was an educator and speech therapist named Erzsébet Sípos. Orbán still has two younger brothers. sYour family had a stable financial condition, placing them in a position corresponding to that of the middle class.
During his childhood, he lived in different places, but completed his basic studies in his hometown. Viktor Orbán toopaid military service for two years, a period he claims was crucial in making him an opponent of Hungarian socialism. After this, moved to Budapest where he studied law at Eötvös Loránd University.
Viktor Orbán's political trajectory
Viktor Orbán finished his course in 1987. Between 1987 and 1988, he worked as a sociologist at an institute that operated for the Ministry of Agriculture and Food.
In politics, Orban gained some national notoriety when he lectured at Budapest on the 16th of June 1989. On that occasion, Orbán honored the Hungarians who rebelled against the Soviets in 1956 and advocated for the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary.
With that, he made his name nationally as an opponent of the socialist regime. In addition, he was already a member of Fidesz (Fiatal Demokraták Szövetsége), a party that had Orbán as one of its founders, was initially a liberal-conservative party. Thus, Viktor Orbán was a strong supporter of the downfall of socialism in your country.
As part of his training, Orbán studied in England between 1989 and 1990. When he returned, he decided to enter politics, running for a position in the Hungarian Parliament. In 1990, he took over as a parliamentarian and in 1993, he took the position as leader of his political party..
Orbán's rise to the party's presidency coincided with a radical shift in Fidesz's ideology. The party and Orbán himself ceased to be liberal-conservatives and became reactionary conservatives with a strong agenda in defense of nationalism.
In 1998, Viktor Orbán formed a coalition of conservative parties to contest the Hungarian general election, and this coalition received around 42% of the vote. This allowed your rise as Prime Minister of Hungary, the first leader of a nation from the Center and the LThis one from Europe not to have been a member of a communist party.
Orbán was just 35 years old at the time, and his tenure was marked by entry of Hungary into nato, North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
In the 2002 general election, Fidesz failed to win the majority needed to keep Orbán in office, and he left the post of prime minister. In 2006, again Fidesz did not have the majority of votes. During this period, Viktor Orbán served as one of the leaders of the opposition in Hungary.
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Return of Viktor Orbán to Hungarian power
In 2010, Fidesz won wide electoral support, winning 263 seats in the Hungarian Parliament, giving them a large majority and allowing the party leader to return to the position of prime minister from Hungary. This second term of Orbán allowed him to build something defined by political scientists as “electoral autocracy”.
An electoral autocracy is a authoritarian governmentado by a leadership that imposes its will on the country. In this model of government, democratic appearances are maintained. Thus, elections are regularly held to convey the idea of institutional normality. However, an autocracy acts to persecute opponents and establishes veiled censorship.
This is basically what has happened in Hungary under Viktor Orbán since he returned to power in 2010. Orbán took a series of actions that weakened Hungarian institutions, subjecting them to his will and implementing a process of centralization of power that put an end to the democracy in this European nation.
In the judiciary, for example, Orbán increased the number of Supreme Court justices from 11 to 15, appointing new allied justices. Furthermore, he amended the rules to bring forward the mandatory retirement of judges and thus ensure a majority of judges with conservative views. Orbán's measures in the judiciary weakened the judiciary and unbalanced the harmony between the Hungarian powers.
Furthermore, the Hungarian press was placed under government control, and opposition media were stifled financially so that they could not support themselves. A number of laws were amended with the aim of undermining the system of checks and balances in Hungarian politics.
Orbán himself announced that he would implant an “illiberal democracy” in his country, along the lines of countries like Türkiye It is Russia, which also have autocratic governments. The Hungarian politician also has xenophobic and homophobic political positions, being responsible for a radical political anti-immigration and ideological persecution of one of the largest universities in his country, the Central European University, expelled from Hungary in 2018.
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By Daniel Neves Silva
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