BUDAPEST: It is no secret who Viktor Orban favours in the US presidential election on Tuesday, with Hungary's nationalist leader saying publicly that he will celebrate if his "dear friend" Donald Trump wins. It is a political friendship that the Hungarian prime minister — whose illiberal policies and pro-Russian stance have made him a bete noire in the European Union — has spent years cultivating, and he could gain a powerful ally if Trump returns to the White House.
One of the key people tasked with making the connection between Orban's "illiberal democracy" and US conservatives is Rod Dreher, a renowned American right-wing thinker and writer who works a few minutes' walk from Orban's seat of power inside Buda Castle. "He had nothing to lose by coming out 100 per cent for Trump," Dreher said, adding that Hungary could "hit the jackpot" and gain a "powerful friend in its eternal struggle against the Brussels bullies." Hungary, which currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, has frequent run-ins with Brussels over the rule of law and a wide range of other issues.
A public bromance between the two has bloomed. Trump recently described Orban as "one of the most respected men" and "a tough person, smart." The Hungarian leader said on X he had called Trump on Thursday to wish him "the best of luck" for the elections. They express strikingly similar political views, both fancying themselves as tough on immigration, for instance.
Orban was the first Western leader to have given Trump his support just after he was nominated by the Republicans as their candidate in 2016. "Project 2025 is reminiscent of Hungarian government practices of keeping the façade of democratic structures in place, but bringing strategic areas such as media, judiciary or education under political control behind the scenes," independent analyst Mate Kalo said.
Their last in-person meeting was in July, when Orban travelled to see Trump at his Mar-a-Lago luxury estate in Florida. Orban went there in March, too. Still, Kalo cautioned against overestimating Orban's influence with Trump, pointing to Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Hungary, an offshoot of a major US conservative political gathering.
Still, a Trump victory could be beneficial for the Hungarian government, with Orban "hoping that a Republican administration would be less critical of his domestic policies," said Zsuzsanna Vegh, a programme officer at the German Marshall Fund. — AFP
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