Reporter and filmmaker András Földes: Viktor Orbán can be a winner even if he is defeated

There are big differences, because Hungary is far ahead on this path, which other countries are also following. In this sense, Hungary is truly a pioneer of the new “beautiful” future of the dictatorship. Slovakia also accommodates it. And unfortunately, the Czech Republic is also on this path. Which is, of course, irony.

But Hungary has an advantage over everyone. He has been working on the decline of democracy for fifteen years, when Fidesz started dismantling democratic institutions, changing the constitution to suit Viktor Orbán and his people. They changed the country to make it work for them. Everyone kind of expected it to stop at some point. But they continue with their plans. They are becoming pioneers of a new totality, including within the whole world.

Yes, all the steps that were taken, for example, in Hungary, are being repeated today in the USA. My film about the targeted decomposition of the media also speaks of this. I see similar processes in Slovakia, which you yourself mentioned. The same strategy is “played” there as well, but the United States is not far behind…

The point is that Viktor Orbán was the first to openly introduce and is introducing efforts to control every part of society. Look at Hungarian universities. He didn’t leave you out either. His goal was and is clear: not to leave room for any disagreement, resistance.

American universities are now undergoing a similar development. Dictators of the “Hungarian” type understand well that this is where defiance is born. Even in the USA, universities – with the exception of Harvard – did not speak out against political efforts to limit their democratic rights.

No, it’s not like one day you live in a democratic society, you go to sleep and the next day you wake up in totalitarianism. The process is reminiscent of the thesis on cooking a frog. It also does not jump out of the water, which is heating up and has more and more degrees.

Orbán started the transformation of the country gradually, purposefully and thoughtfully. He pressured his opponents, then removed them from their positions, fired them from their jobs, and took their livelihood. He hated when the media wrote about it.

The most influential information source (Index.hu – note red.) because he could not get the years under his control. He became more and more aggressive, at the same time his power grew. Such a type of person simply does not understand that someone resists him, that he does not pay someone back, that someone has his own opinion, that someone accuses him of lying…

The majority of society accepts the new laws, the new reality. In many ways we are really approaching the communist era. Which my document shows. It is also great that I live in Europe, which is very consistent in terms of democratic values.

As a creator, I tour one festival after another with the film and see how the theme resonates. Outside, I also meet the Hungarian diaspora. The last time I had a beer with three dozen compatriots was in Copenhagen. They were all educated, very intelligent, successful in what they do, young or relatively young.

They left Hungary because of Orbán five, ten years ago. They built new lives abroad. He will not return home, as they told me. It’s scary. We are losing our best people who could help Hungary become a better place to live. They vote against Orbán by moving out.

Someone says five hundred thousand, others talk about a million. But it is difficult to measure, no one actually monitors it. Those people have Hungarian citizenship, but their jobs and lives are abroad. Maybe some will keep their Hungarian addresses after all, it is easier for them in some ways when communicating with the authorities… After all, the effort of Orbán and his people towards those who left the country because of them is clear: they do not want them to vote in the elections. They haven’t finished it yet, although they are trying.

It is highly probable. Everyone believes that the opposition could break his influence, but he has the majority of the media on his side, controls part of the electorate, and changed the electoral law. I can’t imagine him not winning. He may have a very difficult time, but he can be a winner, even in a situation where he will be defeated. This is how he was able to change the legislation in his favor.

Of course, in addition, the Hungarian countryside, that is a topic in itself. There is so much poverty that you cannot imagine it in the Czech Republic. Fidesz “buys” votes there by having its people – mayors, municipal politicians… – give jobs to the voters there. Jobs in the mentioned areas are mostly connected directly with self-government.

And then someone from Fidesz comes and says to the mayor: make sure they vote for us. He passes it on with the words: if you want a job for another year, money, vote for Fidesz. After all, those people don’t really care who they vote for. They want to have something to eat, a place to live. He throws his vote to Orbán, it doesn’t solve it.

Yes, among other things, the relationship with Russia will change, because Orbán is openly cooperating with Putin. If I talk about opposition politicians, that hope is mainly Péter Magyar. Note that he is otherwise quite secretive about his plans, which is understandable. Fidesz uses everything to break the opposition. He turns every piece of information against his opponent into a lie.

Which happened in the last election, when the opposition supported Ukraine against Russia. Fidesz made it out of wanting to send Hungarians to Ukraine to fight. His people flooded the entire country with this information, the media space, and then it overwhelmed everything else.

Five and a half years. I was surprised by how much time I spent with him. I filmed him as I went. I originally thought that it would be a personal document about the violent takeover and destruction of the Index. About how people force themselves to accept “small” changes in order to continue working. At the same time, everyone knew that these were fundamental changes and that Orbán’s people were behind them. So I turned on the camera, waiting to see what would happen. It became my project.

Just a few. Which is another part of the story. I thought I would tell about the fight between “the good guys and the bad guys”. But even we, in our eighties, were changing. That left me with three people with whom I would now go for a beer, with whom I hang out. It is the result of a battle. Yes, we won it, as fighters for democracy we defended the right to our democratic opinion. Humanly, however, the team fell apart.

We were no longer able to cooperate in general. Those who looked like leaders fell into paranoia here and there, ambitions for power awoke in someone… That’s just life. We won, but our community did not survive. More experienced journalists have even found work outside Hungary, or they are doing something else. But the fight was worth it. A new medium, Telex.hu, has emerged, there are new “leaders”, defenders of freedom of speech, who can hold up a mirror to Orbán.

Still what I can do. I am a reporter in conflicts, I go to Ukraine, to Hungarian “battlefields”, I write about migration… I work for HVG.hu, which is a medium-sized, respected media that was created during socialism and has survived all social changes so far.