Orbán vows Fidesz comeback by December, calls arrests a political hit job

The former prime minister spoke at a one-and-a-half-hour conversation held on the closing day of the two-day event at the Hungarikum Liget in Lakitelek — a session not listed in the official programme in advance — during which he said that “today, destruction is taking place”: everything that the previous government had built over the past 16 years “is being demolished,” and “no serious person” can say at this moment whether any construction will ever follow, only that there is none today, and he sees no plans for it either.

Viktor Orbán described Fidesz as a great historical governing party, while in his view the Tisza Party is “for now only a passing phenomenon.” He added that Tisza could also become a great historical governing party if it does what Fidesz did: creates a new intellectual foundation and delivers an economic performance that sets historical records on that basis. Although they have only been in government for five months, what he currently sees is not that, but rather destruction, he noted.

He believed that their approach to the current situation should be to recognise that “there is an experiment that has received a mandate from the voters,” and that there is the Fidesz community with its own values, past, and achievements, which the country can always count on whenever it needs it.

The president of Fidesz explained that he had been deliberately rude when he previously said it was irrelevant what the current prime minister had to say. In his view, Hungary has also entered the phase of communication already characteristic of Western Europe, where leaders do not argue but merely assert things; therefore, only what actually happens matters. “The commies keep talking, lying about everything, there’s propaganda — but sooner or later Uncle Reality comes knocking,” he added.

Viktor Orbán also spoke about how Tisza can only measure itself against Fidesz, and that in order to create something, some intellectual foundation is needed — and that foundation is the “negation of Fidesz.” He described Tisza as a “radical, left-wing, aggressive neo-communist formation” whose essence is that people should fear state authorities. The “key office” of this is the “ÁVH” — a reference to the National Asset Recovery and Asset Protection Office (NVVH).

Using the president of the State Audit Office as an example, he said that mixing personal vengeance with governance never leads to anything good. As long as 3 million 400 thousand people tolerate someone taking out their personal grievances on a civil servant — simply because his ex-wife lives with that person — anything can happen in this country, he said.

According to Viktor Orbán, the child protection legislative package — dubbed the “gender law” by Fidesz — was drawn up at Brussels’ behest. The party leader said that building the United States of Europe, the Brussels empire, and the new Germany requires, as an important element, that those who are part of it support gender ideology, same-sex marriage and adoption rights, and the possibility of sexual agitation in schools. This is part of the left, and Tisza wants to be part of the historic left, he opined, predicting that the same will be true of migration and the war, since in his view the left is pro-migration and pro-war.

Viktor Orbán considers it a mistake that Tisza — as he put it — is latching onto the wrong European economic policy, arguing that what is needed instead is a sovereign economic policy serving Hungarian interests. He reaffirmed his position that “Brussels must be occupied,” and summed up by saying that Fidesz is an anti-Brussels party, but a pro-Europe one.

Regarding Fidesz’s organisational restructuring, he said the party must grapple with having lost an election and with the fact that the defeat had “deeply shaken the entire leadership structure of Fidesz.” He explained that Fidesz groups had spent the past 16 years tasked with “propping up the government,” which had not been good for the organic community life within the party. The question now, he said, is how people of civic, national, and Christian conviction will reorganise their own political home from settlement to settlement, and a decision must also be made about what to do with a “record-holding” former prime minister who has now lost an election.

In his view, the parliamentary arena has lost its former purpose, with “pub brawls” taking the place of meaningful discourse. He also identified as a problem the generational shift taking place in Hungary, with younger people — who relate to politics differently, and the majority of whom voted against Fidesz — now coming of age.

Viktor Orbán promised that by the end of December, Fidesz would be a competitive party reorganised to meet the new situation, operating with a new cast of roles — the kind where “everyone knows their place.” “At the end of the year, we will be at the disposal of our homeland not 90 but 100 percent, and we are capable of doing something entirely different in this country within a week,” he said.

Viktor Orbán described himself as a coach and parliamentary group leader János Bóka as team captain, and noted that there may come a moment when they hold “a national coaches’ conference where the experienced coaches will have to be heard,” but they are not there yet.

The former prime minister described former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó as a “gold reserve,” calling him a “man of flawless heart,” a “true patriot,” and someone who is available. Of former Minister of Construction and Transport János Lázár, he said that Lázár is being hunted, and so his position had to be found in a way that would allow him to work without being on the front line. Of former Minister heading the Prime Minister’s Office and resigned parliamentary group leader Gergely Gulyás, he said that Gulyás had decided he “could not endure this paranoid parliamentary situation,” and so they looked for a “man of steadier nerves” to replace him, though he continues to work and leads Fidesz’s constitutional law cabinet.

The former prime minister was asked about the cases of former Minister of Culture Balázs Hankó, former State Secretary Veronika Varga-Bajusz, and former NKA Vice President Balázs Bús — all currently in detention in connection with the National Cultural Fund (NKA) affair — as well as the case of Miklós Seszták, a KDNP member of parliament and former Minister of National Development, who was arrested in the Volán affair.

Viktor Orbán said this is “a painful thing” for their community as well, and roughly “three times as painful” for him personally, because these people were brought in to get to him. “The situation is that all any of them would need to say is that I asked them to do something wrong. Then everyone else can go, and I go in,” he said.

In his view, what is happening is not the uncovering of political abuses committed in previous years — because there were none at the level of government — but rather a political operation, “an attempt to eliminate the Fidesz-KDNP, the political rival of the new communists,” carried out under a legal guise, ordered by Prime Minister Péter Magyar, who does not even hide it, has spoken about it in parliament, and has set up a dedicated institution — a “political police” — for this purpose.

“The point is that they want to wipe us off the political map. That is why they are hunting me, looking for paths that lead to me,” he said.

He accused Tisza of wanting to destroy Fidesz, of wanting a one-party system, and of having “successfully lied” that the previous government was corrupt. The former prime minister stated that not a single decision made by his government was corrupt, nor was any of it influenced by private interests. In his view, 80–85 percent of the complaints filed so far do not constitute criminal offences, and the remainder never took place.

In response to a question about the previously announced “national resistance,” Viktor Orbán said that while the country was not yet in a suitable state for this, they themselves were ready for it — “we could hand out the appropriate tools right here, everyone knows what to do with them, who gets what, blunter or sharper.”

“The time to show great force is when there are very many people who feel that, although they acted in good faith, they were deceived and want something different,” he said, adding that in politics the most important thing is a sense of rhythm and timing. “In my view, we’ll start again in the spring, in March,” he said.

Asked where electoral promises could be enforced, he said: in the streets.

On the subject of engaging young people, he said he is 63 years old and has no desire whatsoever to reinvent himself — he wants to live out his life normally. “I am a Christian, Hungarian man — what exactly am I supposed to reinvent? Let us not become slaves to fashion; let us be who we are,” he said, adding that the quality they represent is suited to understanding whatever may come in the world.

In his view, what is needed is therefore not reinvention, but the preservation of intellectual capacity. If Fidesz wants to welcome young people, it must maintain intellectual freshness, make room for them, and talk with them. This is not a problem about the future of Fidesz, but about the future of Hungary, he stated.

Regarding the government’s invitation to the Ukrainian president on the occasion of 23 October, Viktor Orbán said that Zelenskyy has more sense than the person who issued the invitation, and will not attend.

The former prime minister also said that he believed it would take around twenty years to establish the lasting independence of a sovereign Hungary, and that God had given him sixteen — “he still owes four.”

Artificial intelligence was used for the translation of parts of the original Hungarian text.