Viktor Orbán re-elected as party chairman
September 30th, 2013Left-liberal commentators find Orbán’s speech at the Fidesz Congress uninspiring while a pro-government columnist says Fidesz is preparing for a tough fight.
Viktor Orbán was re-elected chairman of Fidesz for the 13th time, with a single vote against. The main question was if he would choose as vice president the controversial János Lázár, now State Secretary in charge of the Prime Minister’s office, who has made the news lately with his brash statements on OTP bank CEO Sándor Csányi (See BudaPost August 16). He did, but Lázár did not take the floor at the convention.
Péter Szabó Szentmihályi in his regular column in Magyar Hírlap says Fidesz has never been as optimistic as at this time, but “the congress is not going to start merrymaking” because their opponents are ruthless and the stakes are high. He thinks opposition forces are trying to mask their weakness, explaining poll results as a sign that voters do not dare come forward, yet “left-liberal intellectuals will fight to the bitter end” and even if they cannot win, “we know they are ready to open fire”.
In 444.hu, Gergő Plankó claims the only important sentence in Orbán’s speech was the one warning that whoever breaks ranks or tolerates the slightest glitch “will owe him 25 years”. He believes that this was not only the strongest statement of the Prime Minister, but also the most sincere one. It showed that “he has devoted his whole life to all this,” and he made it very clear that what is at stake is nothing less than his life. “This was a campaign message to his party and it was surely understood by each and every one of his folk”.