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Speech by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, following the election victory of Fidesz-KDNP

3 April 2022, Budapest

Good evening! We're looking fine. We're looking better and better. Perhaps we've never looked better than we do tonight!

Dear Friends, 

We’ve won a huge victory. We’ve won a victory that's big enough to be seen from the Moon – and certainly from Brussels. The work was fun, and not for the faint of heart! It was good to fight alongside you. Thank you all for what you've put into this victory tonight. Thank you all for your best wishes, your greetings, your encouragement, your slaps on the back and your long hours of work. And, to those who prayed for us, I especially thank you for thinking of me. I send special greetings to Hungarians watching us from beyond our borders. Thank you for your help, because it gave us the chance to help them. I send my special greetings to those who are Hungarians in Transcarpathia today. Our message is this: be not afraid, stand firm, the motherland is with you.

First of all, I need to thank the Hungarian electorate. All I can say to them now is that we'll do our utmost to deserve the trust they’ve placed in us tonight. We know that the most important thing is modesty, and the bigger the victory, the more modesty one needs. Let's admit that tonight there’s plenty to be modest about!

I’d like to thank our volunteers. Over the past few days, more than one hundred thousand volunteers have been working for the result that we're celebrating together tonight. We thank them! They’re not robots or mercenaries, but volunteers who love their country and have been willing to accept risks and hard work. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Friends, 

This isn’t a time for displays of intellect: this is a time for happiness. Let us freely express our emotions! But perhaps we can indulge our intellect enough by saying that with tonight's victory we’ve exhausted almost every possible way of winning. We've now won in every possible way. We won in 2010, in the old two-round system. We won in 2014, when we were challenged by the opposition parties standing independently of one another. We won in 2018, when there was a partial opposition coalition. And we’ve won in 2022, when a full coalition stood against us. This will need to be studied. And if no answer can be found, then we'll need to ask God how it could be that our biggest victory came when everyone stood united in opposition against us. What we can learn from this victory – in the face of all the tactics, all the intrigue, and all the cunning tricks – is that in the end the heart always wins. Our victory, tonight's victory – Hungary's victory tonight – is a victory of the heart. 

Dear Friends, 

We have won because we have a common passion, and the name of that passion is Hungary. Perhaps we should also mention that huge international power centres and organisations have acted against us. We need to send them a message, we need to say one or two good words to them. We can say that every cent given to the Left in Hungary has been a waste of money. And perhaps you’ll allow me to say that the Hungarian left seems to have been the worst investment that Uncle George has made in his entire life, having done nothing for the past twelve years but cost him money.

Dear Friends, 

This victory will also be remembered, perhaps for the rest of our lives, because in our battle we were outnumbered like never before: the Hungarian left and the international left on all sides; the Brussels bureaucrats; all the money and every organisation in the Soros empire; the international mainstream media; and, towards the end, even the President of Ukraine. We’ve never faced so many opponents at once. But despite their huge amounts of money and superior numbers, if we unite we're unstoppable. Remember, at the Peace March on 23 October, our first big gathering after the pandemic, together we said that no amount of money can stop us, and that if we unite we will break through the thickest wall. And before this cold freezes us solid, I'd like to say that we haven’t allowed the failed past to return, we’ve defended Hungary's independence and freedom, we’ve defended Hungary's peace and security, and I hope – although we don’t yet know the result – that we’ve also protected our children and our families!

Dear Friends, Dear Hungarians, 

Don’t forget that around the world we not only have opponents, of course, but also friends. And they, too, have done everything possible to assist our victory. We have friendly thoughts for those who have been with us and helped us in recent months: our American friends, the Poles, the Italians, the Spanish, the Serbs, the Slovaks and the Austrians. We also dedicate this victory to them. This isn't only our victory, but their victory too; because here in Budapest tonight the whole world has seen the victory of Christian democratic politics, conservative civic politics and patriotic politics. And our message to Europe is that this is not the past: this is the future, this will be our common European future! The whole world has seen that Hungarians love their country, and we who have won today pledge that for us Hungary will always come first. 

God above us all, Hungary before all else! Go Hungary, go Hungarians!

Photo credit: MTI