In his inaugural speech after being re-elected by lawmakers as prime minister, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said: “We stand for peace", adding that “war destroys” while “peace builds”. “So we want an immediate ceasefire and peace talks,” he said. This is a position that he would adhere to, he added.
The prime minister pledged to work to ensure that “even in difficult circumstances” Hungary would move forward and not backwards. The new government will preserve its key achievements, even amidst the unfolding European crisis, and will not abandon its most important goals, he added. “We’ll protect full employment, family benefits … the value of pensions, also the cap on utility bills,” PM Orbán said. Commenting on the April general election, Orbán said the election had taken place under “unprecedented international and domestic controls”. It was clear, he added, that Hungary was a place “where electoral abuses are not possible”, and he thanked opposition activists for “helping to protect Hungary’s reputation … through their monitoring”. In the 32 years of Hungarian democracy, never before had so many people voted for a single party than for the Fidesz-led alliance, and this level of support was “unprecedented in the whole of Europe”. Fidesz, he said, had succeeded in notching up its biggest win while competing “in the toughest terrain”, and he accused the left-wing opposition and “their international allies, financiers and the media” of joining up with Brussels and George Soros to plot the government’s downfall. Notwithstanding financial crises, pandemics, a wave of migrants and war, Fidesz, he noted, had won four times in a row. “Successive victories on such a scale is unusual in Europe and in the wider western world.”
Photo credit: MTI