Orban shows the dangerous health of radical nationalism in Hungary

Unappealable. If the conditions under which the electoral campaign and the elections held in Hungary have been conducted are taken as valid, the results could not be more incontrovertible: 54% of the votes for the Hungarian Radical Union (Fidesz) and 35% for the heteroclite opposition coalition. As if that were not enough, to the party of Prime Minister Viktor Orban should be added the 6% of the ultra-conservative Our Fatherland Movement, which would obviously align itself with Orban's guidelines if necessary. In short, two thirds of the Budapest parliament in the hands of Orban's exacerbated nationalism. 

The failure of the six-party coalition that tried to oust Orban from power is so resounding that its leader, Peter Marki-Zay, elected in primaries, will not even be able to sit in Parliament and act as head of the opposition, having failed to win his own seat, having been defeated by his Fidesz opponent, Janos Lázár, in the fourth constituency of the Csongrád-Csanád region.

Orban, the dissident par excellence within the EU, poses a serious problem for EU cohesion if he persists in his challenges. Perhaps exaggeratedly regarded as Vladimir Putin's best friend in the EU, the Hungarian leader maintains a fierce struggle with the Brussels authorities. He is particularly noted for his criticism and stern resistance to immigration, a policy he has nevertheless softened towards refugees fleeing Russia's bombing and killing in neighbouring Ukraine. But unlike the other allies, especially the other three members of the so-called Visegrad Group (Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia), the Hungarian leader is the only one who has not only refused to send arms to the Kiev government but has also refused to authorise the transit through Hungary of the weapons that almost all EU members send to the Ukrainian army.

His past absolute majority has allowed Orban to carry out a series of reforms that have plunged the country into a situation very close to what can be called a "dictacracy", i.e. a dictatorship with elections. The election campaign, in which the entire opposition was only given five minutes on public television to present its programme, in the face of the Hungarian prime minister's overwhelming and absolute monopoly, is a stark illustration of this. This is the clear consecration of a lack of freedom of expression, severely denounced by the EU. A principle that contravenes one of the fundamental freedoms of the EU club, and on which the European Court of Justice has set its sights. Therefore, validating the results of these elections held under these conditions is a major problem for the EU as a whole. The fact that absolute majorities facilitate reforms, even constitutional reforms, so far-reaching as to distort the acquis communautaire, completely undermines the most precious of values that the Union can uphold, and thus opens the door to others being able to imitate such gestures.

Orban's victory is unquestionable, yes, according to the election results and the composition that will emerge in Parliament. And from there, the Hungarian leader will be able to continue to enjoy overwhelming support for the new reforms he wants to undertake, all of them aimed at strengthening his absolute power and suffocating the opposition to the point of making alternation practically impossible. 

If all this is taken for granted, the most obvious consequence is that the EU will lose much of its moral authority to impose the scrupulous democratic model that is its emblem. A dangerous starting point towards a possible disintegration by substantial alteration of the EU club's primary objective: to form an area of free citizens working voluntarily towards common prosperity in the framework of a scrupulous democracy with real and effective separation of powers.