Gergely Gulyás, Head of the Prime Minister’s Office, said Hungary has been a “successful conservative experiment” in recent years.
In his closing speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Friday, Gulyás said the experiment’s success lies in its democratic legitimacy, which was secured in four parliamentary elections won by large margins. But it is also successful because it has “retained the fundamental values that western parties calling themselves Christian Democrats and conservative have abandoned,” he said. On behalf of the Hungarian government, Gulyás thanked the speakers of the event for visiting Hungary “which punches above its weight in the conservative debates”. Conservatives in Western Europe often accept the “rules and frameworks which leftists and liberals have set them.” In the US, however, “conservatives have remained conservative, and protect the fundamental values under attack from wokeism.” That attack “does not happen pro bono”, as proven by the fact that the Hungarian opposition had received 4 billion forints in US dollars to rise to power, he said. That funding served the purpose of “making sure that Hungary is not a country governed by a conservative, Christian democratic force that seems to be a thorn in the current US administration’s side,” he said. “Wokeism questions the concept of homeland targets freedom and peoples’ right to decide about their own fate, and to define their own values and the frameworks of its life,” he said. Gulyás said that the slogan “no woke zone” at the conference entrance was a call for action, and aims to achieve the rise of political forces to power that will declare that their countries “would not become a woke zone”. “Forces that see men as men, women as women, and want to protect our fundamental values: nation, faith and cohesion,” he said.