Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share "He's more of a surfer"
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
"He's more of a surfer"
This is it. On Sunday, Hungarians will vote to keep or kill Viktor Orbán’s 16-year “illiberal” electoral autocracy.
To talk about the last days of the election campaign and opposition activists’ tempered hopes for regime change, Tim and Pepijn are joined on the Twenty-Four Two Podcast by Ábel Bede and Gabriela Greilinger from the invaluable English-language Hungarian Observer.
Ábel, who is a freelance journalist, reports to us from the manic campaign trail of opposition Tisza leader Péter Magyar. Gabriela, a doctoral candidate in far-right politics and democratic backsliding at the University of Georgia, digs into the deep links between Orbánism and the American right.
With two days to go, hopes (and fears of hubris) are high. The latest independent polls suggest Tisza could even win a two-thirds majority that would allow a Magyar government to rewrite the constitution, purge Orbánism from the institutions and restore liberal democracy and political pluralism. But how trusted is he to do this?
Magyar is “not a leader who Hungarian opposition-minded individuals suddenly decided to follow,” says Ábel. “He’s more of a surfer. He’s riding the waves of huge, huge dissatisfaction with the Orbán regime”.
“The Tisza voting coalition is basically a lot of left-leaning and liberal voters, and then also a few right-wing voters, which is a very broad coalition that you need to hold together,” says Gabriela. “The fact of the matter is that you needed that in Hungary to unseat Viktor Orbán because of the way the electoral system is made … It only works that way. You need to have a big party, a big-tent party to unseat Viktor Orbán and from then on, and you can rebuild”.
Twenty-Four Two, hosted by Tim G. Jones and Pepijn Bergsen, is a podcast from 242.news - a Substack newsletter covering the destructive recreation of Europe since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24/2/2022.
This is the last podcast on Hungary but we will be back soon to talk European politics from a liberal-democratic perspective and especially for 2027 and elections in France, Italy, Spain, Poland and Slovakia. So, subscribe (free) to the podcast and to 242.news.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit twentyfourtwo.substack.com
View all episodes
By 242.newsThis is it. On Sunday, Hungarians will vote to keep or kill Viktor Orbán’s 16-year “illiberal” electoral autocracy.
To talk about the last days of the election campaign and opposition activists’ tempered hopes for regime change, Tim and Pepijn are joined on the Twenty-Four Two Podcast by Ábel Bede and Gabriela Greilinger from the invaluable English-language Hungarian Observer.
Ábel, who is a freelance journalist, reports to us from the manic campaign trail of opposition Tisza leader Péter Magyar. Gabriela, a doctoral candidate in far-right politics and democratic backsliding at the University of Georgia, digs into the deep links between Orbánism and the American right.
With two days to go, hopes (and fears of hubris) are high. The latest independent polls suggest Tisza could even win a two-thirds majority that would allow a Magyar government to rewrite the constitution, purge Orbánism from the institutions and restore liberal democracy and political pluralism. But how trusted is he to do this?
Magyar is “not a leader who Hungarian opposition-minded individuals suddenly decided to follow,” says Ábel. “He’s more of a surfer. He’s riding the waves of huge, huge dissatisfaction with the Orbán regime”.
“The Tisza voting coalition is basically a lot of left-leaning and liberal voters, and then also a few right-wing voters, which is a very broad coalition that you need to hold together,” says Gabriela. “The fact of the matter is that you needed that in Hungary to unseat Viktor Orbán because of the way the electoral system is made … It only works that way. You need to have a big party, a big-tent party to unseat Viktor Orbán and from then on, and you can rebuild”.
Twenty-Four Two, hosted by Tim G. Jones and Pepijn Bergsen, is a podcast from 242.news - a Substack newsletter covering the destructive recreation of Europe since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24/2/2022.
This is the last podcast on Hungary but we will be back soon to talk European politics from a liberal-democratic perspective and especially for 2027 and elections in France, Italy, Spain, Poland and Slovakia. So, subscribe (free) to the podcast and to 242.news.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit twentyfourtwo.substack.com