Viktor Orbán

Viktor Mihály Orbán (Hungarian: [ˈviktor ˈorbaːn] ; born 31 May 1963) is a Hungarian lawyer and politician who has been Prime Minister of Hungary since 2010, previously holding the office from 1998 to 2002. He led the Fidesz political party from 1993-2000 and since 2003.

Orbán studied law at Eötvös Loránd University before entering politics in the wake of the Revolutions of 1989. Having participated in the Hungarian dissident student movement, he became nationally known after a 1989 speech in which he demanded that Soviet armed forces leave the People's Republic of Hungary. After the end of communism in Hungary in 1989 followed by transition to a multiparty democracy the following year, Orbán was elected to the National Assembly and led Fidesz's parliamentary group until 1993.

During Orbán's first term as prime minister, from 1998 to 2002 with him as the head of a conservative coalition government, inflation and the fiscal deficit shrank and Hungary joined NATO. Orbán was the Leader of the Opposition from 2002 to 2010. In 2010, Orbán was again elected prime minister. Central issues during Orbán's second premiership include controversial constitutional and legislative reforms, in particular repeated constitutional amendments, including the 2013 amendments to the Constitution of Hungary, as well as the European migrant crisis, the lex CEU, and the COVID-19 pandemic in Hungary. He was reelected in 2014, 2018, and 2022. On 29 November 2020, he became the country's longest-serving prime minister.

Starting with the Second Orbán Government in 2010, during his uninterrupted stay in power, Orbán is said to have curtailed press freedom, weakened judicial independence, and undermined multiparty democracy, amounting to democratic backsliding during Orbán's tenure. He frequently styles himself as a defender of Christian values in the face of the European Union, which he claims is anti-nationalist and anti-Christian. His portrayal of the EU as a political foe while accepting its money and funneling it to his allies and relatives has led to accusations that his government represents a kleptocracy. It has also been characterized as a hybrid regime, dominant-party system, and mafia state.

Orbán defends his policies as "illiberal Christian democracy". As a result, Fidesz was suspended from the European People's Party from March 2019; in March 2021, Fidesz left the EPP over a dispute over new rule-of-law language in the latter's bylaws. In a July 2022 speech, Orbán criticized the miscegenation of European and non-European races, saying: "We [Hungarians] are not a mixed race and we do not want to become a mixed race." Two days later in Vienna, he clarified that he was talking about cultures and not about genetics. His tenure has seen Hungary's government shift towards what he has called "illiberal democracy", while simultaneously promoting Euroscepticism and opposition to liberal democracy and establishment of closer ties with China and Russia.