Opposition: Orbán “Putin’s minion, the last vassal of the aggressor”

An extraordinary session of parliament convened by the opposition parties to condemn Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine lacked a quorum on Thursday night, with representatives of the ruling parties staying away.

The session was initiated by representatives of the Democratic Coalition, Jobbik, the Socialist Party, LMP, and Párbeszéd

Bence Tordai of the Párbeszéd party said Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was “still trying to serve Russian President Vladimir Putin’s interests and slow down joint and effective European action”.

“The prime minister loses his real wars as a rule: he lost against the state debt, budget deficit, inflation, a drastic weakening of the forint, and poverty,” he said, adding that Orbán, who normally opted for a fight, was now uncharacteristically promoting “peace and strategic calm” when it came to condemning Putin.

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LMP lawmaker Antal Csárdi said the peoples of central and eastern Europe must “speak clearly” when an independent state suffers military aggression. “That obligation especially applies to Hungarians” in view of the crushing of the anti-Soviet revolution of 1956, he said.

László Varju, a deputy of the Democratic Coalition, said that the government had “led the country into a total moral and financial disaster”. The prime minister “is Putin’s minion, the last vassal of the aggressor”, who “has made the EU and NATO distrustful of Hungary”, he said, adding that

Orbán’s policies had led to “record-high public debt and inflation” as well as a fuel shortage at filling stations. “This isn’t strategic calm but the scrabbling about of a headless chicken,” he said.

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Ágnes Kunhalmi of the Socialist Party said the parliamentary resolution adopted earlier in the day made it obvious that “Fidesz has so far lied” about the united opposition’s position. “Anyone can see that no political force in Hungary wants to send weapons to Ukraine,” she said. “Hungary’s security depends on NATO rather than on Orbán,” Kunhalmi added.

Jobbik MP Dániel Z. Kárpát said that the absence of government lawmakers at the debate “equals treason” while “Ukrainians and Hungarians or anyone are trying to escape war”. He accused the government of “faffing around” and “idly watching the first signs of an impending global crisis”.