We will not accept the outcome of the Hungarian elections to be influenced with Ukrainian manipulations, Prime Minister-President of Fidesz Viktor Orbán laid down on Thursday at an election rally of the government parties in Törökszentmiklós.
Mr Orbán pointed out: what is at stake in the elections is whether a pro-Ukraine or a patriotic government is formed in Hungary. The Ukrainians are not joking, they have turned Hungary into an area of secret service operations, Ukrainian spies are in and out of Hungary, have organised themselves into Hungarian politics and the Hungarian press, most of all – from among political parties – into Tisza, and are conducting secret service operations, he added.
Therefore, he called upon Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to immediately stop this and to order his “bloodhounds” back home to Ukraine. The Prime Minister stressed: more respect for Hungary, we will decide what kind of a government we want.
The Prime Minister said what is at stake in the elections is whether we will have a patriotic government that will say no to the war and will protect the Hungarians’ money. The question is not who wants to and who does not, but who is able to say no, he laid down, adding that he is able to say no, not because he is braver or smarter than others, but because he has experience.
He recalled 1989 when he had to say no to the Soviets, and then in 2015-2016, he had to say no to the Germans repeatedly on the issue of migration. He added: in 2022 he said no to Brussels when the whole European Union stood up behind the Ukrainians and declared the Russo-Ukrainian war their own.
He stressed that also now, in 2026, he felt he was able to take care of this situation and was able to say no to the Ukrainians. “Zelenskyy, there won’t be a pro-Ukraine government here,” he stated.
He also said it is not enough to want to, it is not enough to say no, you must also know how to stay out of a war which Hungarians more formidable than himself, István Tisza and Miklós Horthy, failed to achieve in World War I and World War II. In his view, he probably succeeded in 2022 because the Hungarians showed unprecedented national unity for peace which they decipher from the fact that they scored a two-thirds victory. If there is national unity, we can stay out of the war, if we are divided, it is much more difficult, he laid down, and asked members of his audience to renew the agreement which they concluded in 2022 and to create national unity again against the war.
“If you are on board, I can do it,” he promised.
Mr Orbán also spoke about the fact that in the past four years, the war has moved ever closer to us, leaders of the European Union are pushing the EU into the war. We must prepare that we will be living in the shadow of the threat of war in the next four years as well, he pointed out.
He recalled that the Ukrainians had blown up the Nord Stream pipeline which belonged not to Hungary, but to Germany, and then they had shut down the gas pipeline through which we had received cheap Russian gas. This did not destroy the budgets of members of the public only because Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó had enough wits and speed and organised a southern pipeline, he pointed out.
He said on average the Hungarians pay around HUF 250,000 annually for household energy, while the Czechs pay a million and the Polish nine hundred thousand. If the Ukrainians succeed in cutting us off from cheap Russian energy, then we ourselves will have to pay around a million forints for household energy, meaning that in the case of an average income, we will lose an entire month’s worth from our twelve-monthly income, he said.
Therefore, this is not a political, but a crucial pocket issue, we must persevere and must protect Hungary’s elementary interests, he laid down.
Now when they imposed an oil blockade on us, we had to show that they cannot do this to Hungary, we cannot be blackmailed, we cannot be intimidated. Therefore, he vetoed the loan intended for Ukraine because “if there is no Hungarian oil, there is no Ukrainian money,” he said.
He further told his audience that they had decided to gradually shut down gas supplies to Ukraine, “if we don’t receive oil, we won’t give them gas.” In the end, we will break Zelenskyy’s oil blockade and will get back what is rightfully ours,” he laid down.
He spoke about the measures implemented with a view to helping Ukrainian refugees, and said we did everything we could for the people who found themselves in trouble, but we will not destroy ourselves to help their war which we have nothing to do with. We need security, and only experienced people can offer security, he laid down.
This is no time to experiment; rather than taking chances, this time, we must play it safe, he said, adding that today Fidesz and the Christian Democratic People’s Party are the safe choice.
The Prime Minster highlighted: as we are facing historic challenges, they must score a historic victory. “Two-thirds is not shabby, but a little bit more wouldn’t hurt,” he stated, adding that the goal is to collect three million votes because “if there are three million people together, not even the gates of hell can overcome Hungary.”
In order to stay out of the war and to also win the next four years, we need a steady hand, cold blood and a clear head, Mr Orbán pointed out, adding that looking around in Hungarian politics, he cannot see anyone other than himself who would be able to offer the country this kind of security.
In his speech, the Prime Minister also said the Hungarians’ money is at stake in the elections as it is being threatened by two plans. According to the first one, the country would be pushed into the group of countries financing Ukraine’s military spending, and as the EU has no money, they will take out a loan which will be secured by the budgets of the nation states. He added: as the Ukrainians would only be required to repay this loan when the defeated Russians pay them reparations, and there is no chance of this happening, the guarantor states will eventually have to repay the loan.
Mr Orbán highlighted: this means that if the country has a pro-Ukraine government and we are “pushed” into these loans, even our children and grandchildren will be paying the amortisation instalments and interest, meaning that “with reference to the war, the Hungarians will be turned into debt slaves.”
“I can tell you that if we have three million votes behind us, I will never allow the Europeans to plunder Hungary with such a credit trick even if they go berserk,” the Prime Minister laid down.
The other plan is that if a pro-Ukraine, and at the same time, pro-big capital, government is formed in Hungary, they will give back to banks, large energy companies and retail chains the HUF 15,000 billion which this government has taken away from them since 2015 – as well as the HUF 2,000 billion planned to be collected from them this year alone in the form of taxes – and which the government uses to support families.
He added: “Shell’s delegate” and “Erste’s representative” turned up at the Tisza Party because they are preparing to take this money away in the event of a change of governments.
Referring to the venue, the Prime Minister stressed: this is a special and especially important constituency because based on earlier experiences, whoever wins the national elections wins in this constituency. “Come, vote and win this constituency,” Mr Orbán appealed to his audience, asking them to support Zsolt Herczeg, the local candidate of Fidesz-Christian Democratic People’s Party. The Prime Minister said the candidate is an incumbent Member of Parliament whom he has always been able to rely on in the past four years, even in the most difficult decisions.
Regarding the crowd that gathered together, he said his supporters are in the middle of the square, towards the edges, there may be people who have not yet decided, and “further out and back still,” there may even be people who support their opponents. He told the latter: he would like them not to forget that “while we don’t sing from the same hymn sheet, and now, we’re up against each other,” at the end of the day, we are all Hungarians.
In his words, what he observes in the campaign is that their opponents are only “attacking, criticising and snarling.” His message to the supporters of the Tisza Party was that a country cannot be built on hatred and anger, only on love and unity, and “we believe in the strength of love and unity.”
This is the big difference, it is between these two that we must choose on 12 April, he laid down.
In his speech, the Prime Minister described the past four years as unfair as we have been compelled to avert crises which we are not responsible for. We did not cause the war, yet, it has slowed down our economy as well, he pointed out. When in 2022 “the price of energy skyrocketed” due to the war and the flawed Brussels sanctions, in that one single year, Hungary lost EUR 10 billion because instead of EUR 7 billion, the country paid EUR 17 billion for the energy bought from abroad, he pointed out.
Evaluating their own performance, he stressed: we have had a government which did not run away from the troubles facing us, did not get scared, did not surrender, but said that they will accomplish all the important things nonetheless. It is unfair that the Hungarians should suffer the consequences of a war they have nothing to do with, he stressed.
He recalled that they had restored the thirteenth monthly pension and had started introducing the fourteenth monthly. He added that in the shadow of the war, they had launched a fixed three per cent housing credit programme. In the whole of Europe, young people in Hungary have the easiest access to home ownership, he laid down.
He highlighted: even in these difficult years, they have not forgotten about families whom they have supported even during the hardest times. Partly because if there are children, there is a future, and if there are no children, there is no future, Mr Orbán said, drawing attention to the fact that even in the shadow of the war, they have doubled the tax benefit available in relation to children. Meanwhile, nowhere else in the world are mothers with minimum two children exempt from the payment of income tax for life, this is only possible in Hungary, he added.
Regarding the topic of jobs, he said today we are living in an economic system which is based on work, and we embraced the very simple truth that none of us want to support people who could work, but choose not to work. In Hungary, if you want to find advancement, you must work, he stated, adding that he also owes the Roma gratitude as they understood this in 2010. At the same time, he expressed hope that there will be even more successful Roma families in Hungary in the coming years.
The Prime Minister also spoke about the fact that they had doubled Hungary’s public assets. Never before have the country’s foreign currency reserves been this high, while they have increased Hungary’s gold reserves thirty-fold.
