JD Vance has pushed back against claims that the US is interfering in Hungarian politics, describing the accusations as “darkly ironic”, as a set of polls suggested the opposition Tisza party could win a supermajority in the forthcoming elections.
After spending his first day in Budapest excoriating the EU and accusing it of being behind one of the “worst examples” of foreign interference, the US vice-president spent part of Wednesday morning speaking at a thinktank and educational institution linked to Hungary’s leader, Viktor Orbán.
With four days to go until Hungarians cast their ballots – and with Orbán trailing the opposition in most polls – Vance acknowledged the singular nature of his visit.
“It’s unprecedented for an American vice-president to come the week before an election,” he said. But he said he had decided to come because of what he described as the “garbage happening against” Orbán in the election.
“We had to show that there are actually lots of friends across the world who recognise that Viktor and his government are doing a good job and they’re important partners for peace,” he said.
Vance insisted, however, that his efforts to bolster the lagging campaign of the rightwing, populist leader – whose “illiberal democracy” has long been seen as an inspiration for the Maga movement – did not constitute foreign interference. “I find it darkly ironic that people are accusing me of engaging in some kind of foreign influence,” he said.
On Wednesday, the German government shot back at Vance’s claims, rejecting the claim that the EU was interfering in Hungary’s election. The fact that Vance was in Hungary “already shows, or speaks for itself, who is interfering in what”, said a government spokesperson.
While the EU was reluctant to discuss the matter, a spokesperson said the bloc would use diplomatic channels to convey its concerns to Washington.
One day earlier, as Vance and his wife, Usha, landed in the capital, Péter Magyar, the leading opposition candidate, issued a pointed statement.
“No foreign country may interfere in Hungarian elections,” he said. “This is our country. Hungarian history is not written in Washington, Moscow or Brussels – it is written in Hungary’s streets and squares.”
Magyar, a former member of the Fidesz party’s inner circle, burst into public view two years ago after he broke ranks to accuse Orbán’s party of rampant corruption.
The claims snowballed into a campaign that has steadily swelled, transforming the election into one of the most consequential of recent times, as it galvanised voters’ frustration over issues such as deteriorating public services, soaring housing prices and economic stagnation.
The result has been a deeply polarising campaign in which Orbán and Fidesz have sought to argue that the EU and Ukraine represent the gravest threats to Hungary, portraying the election as a stark choice between war and peace, while Magyar has focused on domestic issues.
On Wednesday, a projection from the polling agency Median suggested that Tisza could win a two-thirds majority in the country’s 199-seat parliament.
While accusations of vote-buying and gerrymandering make the outcome of the election incredibly difficult to predict, a Tisza supermajority would give the party enough power to amend the constitution and key laws, meaning they could unlock EU funds.
As Vance waded into the Hungarian election, he appeared to have been drawn into Orbán’s strategy. The US vice-president laid the blame for Hungary’s ills on the EU, even as research showed the country had received more in EU funding than any other major post-communist EU country, both as a share of GDP and per capita, and that Orbán’s time in power had correlated with the country becoming the most corrupt in the EU.
Vance also took aim at Volodymyr Zelenskyy, describing comments by the Ukrainian leader as “completely scandalous”, and accused Kyiv of using energy supplies to influence Hungary.
It was a reference to controversial comments Zelenskyy made after Orbán vetoed further EU sanctions on Russia, as well as an additional €90bn (£78bn) loan for Ukraine.
Zelenskyy was prompted to say he could give the address of whoever was responsible to the Ukrainian army. The comment reportedly led European allies to ask Zelenskyy to tone down his rhetoric.
Vance said he was “disappointed” by Europe’s political leadership as it appeared to him that they were not “particularly interested” in solving the conflict.
He contrasted that with Orbán – who has broken with most EU countries by refusing to help Ukraine financially or with weapons – and who, he said, had been “the one who encouraged us to truly understand” the perspective of both the Ukrainians and Russians.
The US vice-president made no mention of the series of recent scandals that had laid bare the extent of Russia’s influence over Orbán’s government, from allegations that Russian intelligence agencies and disinformation networks linked to Moscow were working to sway the election in his favour, to the October call in which Orbán reportedly told Vladimir Putin: “I am at your service.”
After Hungary’s foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, was accused of regularly sharing the details of confidential EU meetings with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, leaked audio appeared to capture Szijjártó telling Lavrov that he would work to amend the EU sanctions list to Russia’s liking.
On Wednesday there were more revelations, as Szijjártó appeared to offer to send Lavrov a document about Ukraine’s EU accession, in leaked recordings obtained by a consortium of investigative reporters.
“I will send it to you. It’s not a problem,” Szijjártó reportedly said, after Lavrov said that Moscow was trying to get a document about the role of minority languages in Ukraine’s EU accession talks.
The revelations were published hours after Vance appeared to imply that the resolution to the Russian invasion of Ukraine hinged on Kyiv making territorial concessions.
“We’re talking about haggling at this point over a few square kilometres of territory in one direction or another,” he said.
As Vance landed in Budapest to rally behind Orbán, Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate foreign relations committee in the US, pointed to what Vance had failed to mention about the relationship between Hungary and Russia.
A report last month showed that Hungary’s reliance on Russia had increased since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with Russia now accounting for 93% of the country’s crude oil imports compared with 61% in 2021.
This reliance had led to broad consequences for the war in Ukraine, said Shaheen. “Orbán has repeatedly hampered Europe’s ability to defend against Russian aggression while providing billions in energy payments to boost Putin’s war chest.”
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: theguardian.com
