Two final Hungarian politics links...
Apr. 15th, 2026 07:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorosa_12... and then I'll stop, I promise!
This lengthy essay gives a blow-by-blow account of the staggeringly overwhelming non-stop series of shenanigans (autocratic regime and its external autocratic patrons) that voters had to deal with during the lengthy lead up to Sunday's vote. (This included: nonstop antisemitic propaganda campaign claiming the democratic opposition were stooges of Zelenskyy, recycled from a previous nonstop antisemitic propaganda campaign claiming the same thing about Soros, ham-fisted false flag attacks from Russian intelligence on an oil pipeline in Serbia which they tried to spin as a Ukrainian sabotage, intelligence operations targeting teenage opposition IT specialists, attempts to charge independent investigative journalists with espionage, etc.)
Plus:
As the author of the essay said, Hungary under Orbán was 'not a democracy with flaws, but an autocracy with elections.'
It took a lot to overcome that wall of horrors, and this thread by a Hungarian academic summarises it well.
What they were up against was unbelievable, and I am so immensely impressed. No wonder everyone took to the streets and partied as if they'd just won the World Cup.
This lengthy essay gives a blow-by-blow account of the staggeringly overwhelming non-stop series of shenanigans (autocratic regime and its external autocratic patrons) that voters had to deal with during the lengthy lead up to Sunday's vote. (This included: nonstop antisemitic propaganda campaign claiming the democratic opposition were stooges of Zelenskyy, recycled from a previous nonstop antisemitic propaganda campaign claiming the same thing about Soros, ham-fisted false flag attacks from Russian intelligence on an oil pipeline in Serbia which they tried to spin as a Ukrainian sabotage, intelligence operations targeting teenage opposition IT specialists, attempts to charge independent investigative journalists with espionage, etc.)
Plus:
systematic vote-buying: bribing people with bags of potatoes, cash, even drugs; local strongmen threatening to fire them from their jobs if they don’t vote Fidesz, or call child services on them; thugs accompany citizens into the voting booth — a full logistics chain of stealing the election.
As the author of the essay said, Hungary under Orbán was 'not a democracy with flaws, but an autocracy with elections.'
It took a lot to overcome that wall of horrors, and this thread by a Hungarian academic summarises it well.
What they were up against was unbelievable, and I am so immensely impressed. No wonder everyone took to the streets and partied as if they'd just won the World Cup.
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Date: 2026-04-16 04:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-04-16 04:58 am (UTC)