Hungary’s Orban kicks off re-election campaign

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Saturday (12 February) kicked off his re-election campaign, touting his government's work and warning of an influx of refugees from Ukraine if war breaks out.

The nationalist leader, who has been in power since 2010, wants to win a fourth straight term in office when Hungarians vote April 3 in what are shaping up to be his closest contest yet with six opposition parties joining forces in a bid to oust him.

Critics have slammed Orbán's government for clamping down on media freedom and civil society and fuelling discrimination, including a law passed last year targeting the LGBTQ community.

The central European country of 9.8 million has also witnessed one of the coronavirus pandemic's highest death rates, according to AFP data.

"We are emerging stronger from the current crisis than we have entered into it," Orbán, 58, said in a national address.

He accused the opposition of "serious irresponsibility" in labelling his government a "dictatorship" and said if elected, they would mismanage the country.

"Not only the virus but also the left has attacked Hungary," he said.

Peter Marki-Zay, the opposition candidate for prime minister, in a post on Facebook slammed Orbán's speech as full of "empty rhetoric, confused pictures and puns".

Orbán also warned of "hundreds of thousands, or even millions" of refugees arriving from Ukraine, which shares a small land border with Hungary, should war break out.

Russia has been amassing troops close to Ukraine's frontier raising fears of an invasion.

"The Russia-Ukraine conflict is urgent. Hungary's interest: war must be avoided first and foremost," he said.

Orbán met Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin on February 1, pledging cooperation with Moscow for years to come in a trip criticised by his EU allies and Hungary's opposition.

The Hungarian leader has friendly relations with Putin but has presided over deteriorating ties with Brussels.

Hungary, which joined NATO in 1999 and the European Union in 2004, has not echoed general EU alarm over Russia's troop build-up near Ukraine.

Hungarian Defence Minister Tibor Benko said earlier this month that leaders should shy away from "Cold War rhetoric" and that there was "no need for 1,000 NATO soldiers to come to Hungary and be stationed here permanently".

NATO is seeking to bolster its eastern flank with additional allied troops and equipment being sent to Bulgaria, Poland and Romania.