Armen Ashotyan writes: “3 reasons to follow the Hungarian elections.

Parliamentary elections will take place in Hungary today, the intrigue around which is not only national, but also European and even global.

At first glance, we are not interested in this event, but there are 3 reasons to follow it from Armenia.

The first. Since 2012, Viktor Orban has allowed insult and deception towards Armenia and the Armenian people, by extraditing Ramil Safarov to Azerbaijan, allowing Aliyev to make a hero of that murderer, who took the life of Armenian officer Gurgen Margaryan right in Budapest.

And it is natural that Viktor Orban’s possible defeat has a certain historical justice in it from the point of view of Armenia and the Armenian people.

The second. The Hungarian elections have become part of the European and global political agenda, because Orbán’s government conducts, to put it mildly, a Eurosceptic policy, emphasizing and promoting the issue of the sovereignty of nation states within a supranational organization like the European Union.

External pre-election interventions both in favor of Orbán and in favor of the united opposition candidate Magyar are very evident. Therefore, Armenia, which has appeared on the threshold of parliamentary elections and is feeling all the splendor and misery of external pre-election interventions, cannot be indifferent to similar interventions in another country.

European cynicism is emphasized once again in this context. When US Vice President Vance came to Armenia and expressed his direct support to Nikol, thereby carrying out electoral interference, the entire liberal European community welcomed that step.

However, when the same Vance visited Budapest and expressed his support for Orbán, the “democratic value system” chick woke up in the liberal European public, and they began to criticize this fact in a ferocious manner.

We have been used to European political double standards for a long time, and this example is one of the most recent and striking.

The third. The Hungarian elections should also be of interest to the opposition of Armenia, because Viktor Orban’s form of government is authoritarian and completely fits the logic of modern illiberal rulers.

Of course, being a member of the EU, Hungary could not bypass all European standards related to democracy and the rule of law.

However, the parallels of governance between Orbán and Nikol are very visible, especially in the authoritarian script. Of course, Nikol is trying to become a much more ferocious dictator, because he does not have a European institutional straitjacket on him, but both Nikol and Orban completely fit into the modern political science term spin dictator, therefore, the possible defeat of such a dictator, such an authoritarian ruler and the anatomy of that defeat can be interesting and useful for the Armenian opposition.

Of course, in the case of Hungary, the opposition challenged Orbán unitedly, and in Armenia it was divided into pre-election teams, however, it is still interesting to see if this tactic, the fist of the united opposition, can defeat the authoritarian ruler. And what kind of technological, political, propaganda tools were used in that possible victory?

Therefore, let’s follow today’s elections in Hungary, because, as I already said, they are also interesting for us for the 3 reasons listed above.

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