Once-fringe Soros conspiracy theory takes center stage in Hungarian election
BUDAPEST — After eight years of bending this nation to his increasingly autocratic and illiberal will, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has only a smattering of disorganized opposition parties to overcome on the road to winning four more in elections next month.
But in his own telling, he is locked in an epochal struggle with a far more worthy competitor: a shadowy international puppet master whose dangerous ideas and limitless resources put him on par with the great invaders and occupiers defeated across centuries of Hungarian history.
“We sent home the [Ottoman] sultan with his army, the Habsburg kaiser with his raiders and the Soviets with their comrades,” Orban thundered to an adoring crowd of more than 100,000 people in central Budapest this past week. “Now we will send home Uncle George.”
George Soros, that is.
With his left-wing views and deep pockets, the 87-year-old New York-based financier and philanthropist has in recent years become the ultimate boogeyman for far-right ideologues, demagogic despots, tin-hat conspiracy theorists and anti-Semites the world over.
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The campaign goes well beyond rhetoric. Orban warned ominously Thursday that Soros’s allies in Hungary would face “revenge” after the April 8 vote, and there are already indications of a crackdown to come.
The prime minister’s party has vowed to pass legislation that would severely curtail the work of nongovernmental organizations. Such groups, many of which are funded by Soros, are among the last remnants of Hungarian society that haven’t fallen prey to the ruling Fidesz party’s iron grip. The prime minister has dubbed the bill the “Stop Soros” law.
“It’s not just an election trick,” said Marta Pardavi, co-chair of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, a human rights group. “There’s a very strong determination on the part of the government to not only stigmatize NGOs, but to make it very hard for them to even operate.”
Orban’s demonization of Soros, to the exclusion of virtually all other issues, reflects just how far Hungary has drifted from the European mainstream since his election in 2010. A fringe obsession in other parts of the West, Soros-bashing in this nation of 10 million has moved to the very center of political debate.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/once-fringe-soros-conspiracy-theory-takes-center-stage-in-hungarian-election/2018/03/17/f0a1d5ae-2601-11e8-a227-fd2b009466bc_story.html