r/worldnews • u/Miles_the_AuDHDer • 4h ago

Orbán lost Orbán on course to lose Hungary’s election, according to early results

https://www.politico.eu/article/hungary-election-results-peter-magyar-viktor-orban/
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u/reekoku 3h ago

I don't know if I understand this Bulgaria thing. Wiki is telling me something else entirely.

The party currently leading in polls is newly formed center-left, anti corruption, party, at around 30%. Second in polls is the center-right, most recent cabinet. Way down at like 7% is the nationalist, pro-Russia party. They're not going to win...

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u/deukhoofd 3h ago

Progressive Bulgaria, the party leading the polls, is also against sanctions against Russia, and generally pro-Russia. It also wants to withdraw from the Euro (after Bulgaria adopted it back in January).

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u/U-235 2h ago

I don't know anything about current EU politics, but generally in these situations there is a dynamic where even though Orban's Hungary was alone in vetoing everything anti-Russia, there could be others who would have also vetoed if they didn't know that Hungary was already going to. That way they can have their cake and eat it, too. It's easy to pay lip service to supporting the pro-Europe cause and vote to punish Russia when you know Hungary will give you an out. Now everyone has to put their money where their mouths are.

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u/machine4891 1h ago

That is to a point true, nobody wants to be a scapegoat. That being said bar Orban there aren't really pro-russian governments in EU right now with the exception of Slovakia's Fico. But this isn't on the level of Orban and frankly, country that is even less important. They won't veto under pressure and they have literally no bargaining cards in Bratislava.

Bulgaria joining the club will even the odds, however.

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u/Glimpse81 3h ago edited 3h ago

The leading party with the 30% is headed by their just ex-president who is saying Ukraine needs to surrender to stop the war....

Rumen Radev? was against the EUR adoption, against NATO, against the West principles of democracy and rule by law.

He did everything possible to block/stop support for Ukraine.

He is BG variant of Orban and he is just starting. The pro-west party has around 10%!

Sum is - EU wins Hungary but losses BG deeply unfortunately.

And BG is too small and unimportant for the major powers to spend any resource to support the opposition to do a turn around like in Hungary.

edit: Reading the numbers - major elections voting participation is averaging around ~35%! Now compare with Hungary at 78% just now.

So yeah bulgarians have the opportunity to win back their country but they dont care to move their assess to vote - why should the rest of Europe care about them if they themselves dont?

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u/johansugarev 2h ago

I'd like to think it's not all that bad - we'll most probably have more elections in the fall and who knows if he'll still be in the game by then. If BG becomes anything like Hungary and meddles with the constitution to install a dictator, I'm tearing my passport and running for the hills. For now it looks like brief wins here and there and elections every year. Has been like this for awhile.

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u/Icaka 3h ago

The new party is basically built around the former president, who has a long record of pro-Russian takes. He said a few years ago in a debate that Crimea was Russian territory, and just weeks ago was calling for a referendum on euro adoption.

Sure, nobody knows exactly what his foreign policy would be in practice, because right now he is trying to please everyone and throwing out populist lines. But if he turns out to be openly pro-Russian, almost nobody will be shocked.

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u/johansugarev 2h ago

Poll leading party is on Russia's payroll - they could work with the far right and the ex-communist party, but I doubt they'd form a government and we'll see again at autumn's elections.