Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has promised to push through a controversial piece of legislation targeting civil society, claiming his victory in parliamentary elections had provided him with what could be the strongest political mandate in recent Hungarian history.

The announcement on Tuesday – combined with news that one of the last remaining newspapers critical of the Orbán government would be closing with immediate effect – led his critics to fear the worst as Orbán begins another four years in power.

Orbán ran his campaign on the single issue of migration and has blamed a network of the political opposition, NGOs and critical media of being part of a plot orchestrated by the Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros to send millions of migrants to Hungary.

Q&A Why is Hungary going after George Soros? Show Hide The Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has used scaremongering tactics about migrants and refugees as the cornerstone of his politics in the past few years, but in classic populist style he has also required a shadowy, nefarious overlord to target. In Orbán’s case, that figure has been George Soros, who perfectly fits the bill as both insider and outsider in Hungary. Soros was born György Schwartz to a family of Hungarian Jews in 1930, but his father changed their surname to make it more Hungarian. His family split up and lived under assumed identities to escape the Holocaust, and Soros left Hungary in 1947 to study in London. He later emigrated to the US, making billions as an investor and hedge fund manager. His Open Society foundations have donated billions to promoting civil society and human rights, particularly in the former Communist countries of central and eastern Europe. Soros is a favoured target of rightwing governments worldwide, including in Israel. Hungarian officials have used criticism of Soros by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to deflect allegations of antisemitism around their own anti-Soros campaign. However, at times, the rhetoric appears to borrow heavily from antisemitic tropes. In a March speech in which he accused the political opposition of being “Soros candidates”, Orbán referred to his enemies as “not straightforward but crafty; not honest but base; not national but international; does not believe in working but speculates with money”.



Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images Europe

His Fidesz party won a two-thirds majority in parliament in Sunday’s vote, which international observers said was marred by “intimidating and xenophobic rhetoric, media bias and opaque financing”. However, Orbán said the campaign had been vindicated by the result.

“The Hungarian voters have designated the most important topics: immigration and the topic of national security. Hungarians have decided they want to be the only ones who will decide who can live in Hungary,” he said during a press conference at the Hungarian parliament in Budapest.

Orbán made it clear that far from stepping back from the ruthless campaign rhetoric, he would stay true to it, including by going ahead with controversial bills described by his government as the “Stop Soros” package.

“The reason we submitted this package before the elections is in order to allow the Hungarian voters to cast their vote knowing our intention on this. This has happened and we believe we are mandated by this election to pass this law,” he said.

Among other things, the proposed laws would require NGOs that work on migration-related issues to register with the interior ministry. They could be rejected on a national security basis after vetting by security agencies. Any foreign funding for migration-related activities would be subjected to a 25% tax.

In a statement, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, which is partially funded by Soros and is one of the few organisations that continues to work on migration issues, said: “The last decades have shown the importance and merit of our work. This is even more so now when an unscrupulous government has gained effectively unlimited power to change the constitution, further dismantle the rule of law and arbitrarily restrict human rights.”

There had been speculation in the run-up to the election that the government would move to consolidate its dominance of the media market after the vote, and on Tuesday morning staff at the daily newspaper Magyar Nemzet were told that Wednesday’s edition would be the last.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Journalists on the daily newspaper Magyar Nemzet were told it would close with immediate effect. Photograph: Bernadett Szabo/Reuters

The loss-making paper is controlled by Lajos Simicska, a businessman who was once Orbán’s closest ally but fell out with him in 2015. In the run-up to the elections, the newspaper uncovered a number of corruption scandals involving government figures. Observers said the paper was not truly independent, given its control by Simicska, but was a critical voice in a media landscape dominated by government-friendly publications.

“Only the online media is more or less free; the print, radio and television are clearly dominated by pro-government investors,” said Ágnes Urbán, a leading media analyst and professor at the Corvinus University of Budapest.

Zsombor György, Magyar Nemzet’s deputy editor, dismissed Orbán’s claim in his press conference that the closure was purely a financial issue. “This is how the Orbán government has put pressure on all critical voices and opposition media. We know that mafia leaders don’t like to get their own hands dirty. But there will be a day when things are different,” he said.

Zsombor said the paper was in talks with a potential investor to prevent its closure. “The government has been putting pressure on us for three years by withdrawing state-funded advertising, and by forbidding state institutions from subscribing,” he said.

Another possible target in the post-election crackdown on the so-called Soros network is the Central European University, a Budapest-based English-language institution considered to be one of the best universities in the region, which is funded by Soros.



Over the past year the government has been locked in dispute with the university over a registration issue, which many have seen as a pretext for political pressure. On Monday the university announced an agreement to open a satellite campus in Vienna. The government appeared to back down on threats to close it after mass protests last year, but on Tuesday Orbán, when asked twice whether he would rule out shutting the university, said he had not yet discussed the issue with the new government.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Central European University in Budapest is another possible target of Viktor Orbán’s crackdown. Photograph: Bernadett Szabo/Reuters

Orbán said the government, when formed, would be different to the previous one, without elaborating. “We don’t intend to extend the previous term but instead we will open a new term. Thus, significant changes and modifications can be expected.”

The liberal opposition, which was trounced in the vote, has alleged widespread electoral fraud and an unfair playing field. On Monday, international monitors from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe released a sharply critical preliminary report on the Hungarian elections, lamenting the “intimidating and xenophobic rhetoric and media bias” during the campaign.

When asked about the report, Orbán said “thanks for the political contribution” and moved to the next question.

Additional reporting by Gabi Horn.