Orban on Defensive as Yacht Orgy Video Mars Election Race
Hungarians Vote After Yacht Orgy Video Challenges Orban’s Dominance
(Bloomberg) -- Hungary’s municipal elections appeared to catch Prime Minister Viktor Orban on the defensive as a video of one of his allies rollicking in an orgy on a luxury yacht handed an unexpected last-minute gift to the opposition.
Orban, who in brief comments Sunday tried to distance himself from the scandal, can still count on the tight grip he has on the country. He has crushed civil society and controls much of the national media. At stake now is whether the case can taint him or whether he’s succeeded in making himself untouchable.
A strong showing by opposition parties, particularly in the capital Budapest, could give them momentum against Orban for the 2022 parliamentary ballot. Failure to reclaim some big cities despite joining their forces the first time would point to a likely fifth term for the premier, one of the most prominent populists in the European Union.
The voting across Hungary starts at 6 a.m. and ends at 7 p.m., with results expected in the evening.
Opposition parties gained momentum in the campaign’s final week after the video emerged showing the mayor of Gyor, western Hungary’s largest city, taking part in a sex party on a yacht along with his associates. The footage, circulated on porn websites, jars against the conservative family values the ruling party projects across its media networks and ubiquitous billboards.
Orban Weighs In
Zsolt Borkai, the mayor at the center of the controversy, has issued an apology. He denied using drugs or relying on public funds to finance his trips.
Orban declined to endorse Borkai after casting his vote in Budapest, saying only that he supported “the people of Gyor” and adding that he would comment on the case in more detail on Monday.
“This campaign has diverged sharply from national politics,” Orban said, according to a video on hvg.hu news website. “It has been the race most focused on local candidates in the last 30 years. We were also in favor of that, the decision had to be whether our towns and villages will have qualified leaders.”
But the opposition seized on the opportunity. In Gyor, a Fidesz stronghold where Borkai has served as mayor since 2006, anti-Orban groups held a demonstration Saturday against the city’s incumbent, a former Olympic champion gymnast. The Momentum party plastered the offices of Orban’s Fidesz with posters saying “Public funds, cocaine, whores” to contrast with the ruling party’s slogan of “God, nation, family.”
“The filth that’s come to light in Gyor isn’t unique,” Gergely Karacsony, the opposition’s candidate for mayor of Budapest, told supporters on Friday evening at his final rally. “There’s not two types of Fidesz, there’s only one, and it’s rotten to the core.”
While major sex scandals have been rare in recent Hungarian politics, Borkai’s extravagance on the boat trip wasn’t an entirely isolated case, with members of Orban’s entourage engaging in increasingly flamboyant lifestyles. Many of the premier’s relatives, advisers and allies from parliament and business have been displaying their wealth with hunting trips, cruises, private jets and luxury possessions.
Municipal elections, as the similarly authoritarian leader in Turkey discovered, serve as a warning flag for voters’ mood. In Austria, a damaging video tape brought down an entire government earlier this year.
The risk for the Hungarian ruling party is that fallout from the video hurts the turnout of Fidesz voters and tips close races, including the one in Budapest, where Karacsony is neck and neck with Istvan Tarlos, a two-term incumbent backed by Orban.
Opposition forces are deploying a new strategy of fielding joint candidates to improve their chances after a string of defeats since 2010. Fidesz-backed mayors currently run all but four of the country’s 25 largest cities, and the party holds majorities in all 19 county assemblies and a constitutional majority in the national parliament, meaning it can pass any law it wants without hindrance.
Failure to reclaim some big cities despite joining forces for the first time would point to a likely fifth term for the premier after the 2022 parliamentary ballot.
The sex video surfacing so close to the election date has caused a rare short-circuiting among Hungary’s ruling elite, where one of the continent’s most powerful propaganda machines usually manages to drown out scandals involving the ruling party, leaving support for Fidesz largely unscathed.
Even if the opposition manages to make big gains on Sunday, it’ll still face an uphill battle. Orban can count on the EU’s fastest economic growth, surging wages and his media juggernaut to help him maintain dominance.
To contact the reporters on this story: Andras Gergely in Budapest at agergely@bloomberg.net;Zoltan Simon in Budapest at zsimon@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Balazs Penz at bpenz@bloomberg.net, ;Flavia Krause-Jackson at fjackson@bloomberg.net, ;Scott Rose at rrose10@bloomberg.net, Andrew Davis, Amanda Jordan
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