FELCSÚT, Hungary — The whitewashed peasant-style cottage that belongs to Viktor Orbán is Hungarian picture-perfect, with wooden shutters and a garden water well. It speaks to the humble origins of the country’s long-serving, globe-trotting prime minster, the son of a Communist collective farm foreman. Of course, that’s exactly what the village house is meant to signal — that despite his success, his 16 years dominating Hungarian politics and his alliances with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, Orbán is still a down-to-earth man of the people, who hasn’t forgotten his past and remembers what it was like as a young boy to harvest beets and dig up potatoes. Never mind that four kilometers away the Orbán family has a sprawling manor house and farm estate once owned in the 19th century by Archduke Joseph of Austria. The family insists the estate, which includes a zoo and palm house, is owned not by the prime minister, but by his father. No, indeed, they say, the modest cottage facing me is Orbán’s real country retreat.I look over the picket fence into the yard. Strangely, there are no guards protecting it this spring day, and with the cherry blossoms starting to bud, the place seems inviting. I resist the lure to click open the gate to get a closer peek and to lounge in the MAGA ally’s garden chairs. I’m also cognizant of the many CCTV cameras attached to the football stadium on the other side of the street overshadowing Orbán’s cottage. Best not to trespass. I’ve traveled west over the hills for 40 minutes from Hungary’s capital, where national election campaigning is in full raucous mode. With polling days away, Orbán’s political dominance is in serious question for the first time since he took power in 2010. His foes hope April 12, Election Day, will mark the day of his downfall.Orbán continues to trail in the opinion polls behind Péter Magyar, a defector from Orbán’s own ruling Fidesz party. Magyar’s center-right Tisza party has been on average 10 points ahead of Fidesz and last week three independent polls suggested the gap between the two is widening. A majority of Hungarians seemingly are losing patience with Hungary’s struggling economy, high prices, dilapidated hospitals and the chronic underfunding of the country’s railway networks which has left normally loyal Fidesz villages feeling abandoned. That explains why Magyar has remained laser-focused in his campaigning on bread-and-butter issues while… [TheTopNews] Read More.
4 weeks ago
