British outlet The Telegraph has published a bizarre opinion piece on the upcoming Hungarian parliamentary election, claiming that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, supported by Donald Trump, Xi Jinping, and Vladimir Putin, is preparing for a coup d’état in the event of an electoral defeat.
The article is authored by former MP Zoltán Kész, who, during his political career, suffered multiple electoral defeats at the hands of Orbán’s Fidesz–KDNP alliance and became closely integrated into the opposition network that constantly smears and seeks to undermine the Hungarian government both domestically and internationally.
A Made-Up Security Crisis?
The entire argument rests on Kész’s assumption that Orbán and his party alliance would refuse to relinquish power in the event of an electoral defeat in April. He bases this claim on what he describes as an artificially manufactured ‘security crisis’ involving Ukraine, which, according to him, could serve as a pretext for Orbán to ‘invalidate’ his ‘likely loss’ in the upcoming election.
What Kész tries to frame as a made-up security crisis is, in fact, Kyiv’s blockade of oil transit through the key Druzhba pipeline, which has been halted since 27 January. Coupled with the events unfolding over the weekend in Iran, the disruption increasingly threatens the energy security of both Hungary and Slovakia.
In response to Ukraine’s adversarial actions, Hungary has blocked a €90 billion EU loan to Kyiv, halted diesel exports to the country, and blocked the 20th sanctions package during last week’s EU Foreign Affairs Council. Slovakia, for its part, has halted electricity exports to Ukraine and established a joint investigative committee with Hungary to clarify the conditions surrounding Druzhba. On Monday, political director of the Hungarian prime minister Balázs Orbán said that satellite imagery confirms there is no technical obstacle to restarting the Druzhba pipeline.
Citing intelligence reports, Orbán also ordered reinforced security for critical energy infrastructure, fearing Ukrainian sabotage. Taking into consideration that Kyiv already blew up one of its biggest European allies’ critical energy infrastructure, Nord Stream, many would consider potential sabotage a real security threat. Yet the author tries to frame it as if it was all made up in Orbán’s head as a weird plot to keep him in power.
Preparing for a Defeat
The real intention of Kész’s article becomes increasingly clear: it forms part of a broader opposition effort to prepare both their voter base and their international backers for yet another defeat—potentially their fifth in a row—at the hands of Viktor Orbán. The author repeats the same arguments heard over the past 15 years on why the opposition cannot defeat Fidesz–KDNP: ‘the election system has been subverted, state institutions have been captured, and Orbán has gained almost total control over the media and state resources.’
Kész’s piece is far from unique in this regard. From Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski to Hungarian opposition leader Péter Magyar, actors and outlets aligned with the Western mainstream and EU elites have constantly raised the prospect of such a scenario. It is, however, rather incomprehensible, as, according to opposition-aligned pollster Medián, the Tisza party is leading Orbán’s Fidesz–KDNP by 20 (!) percentage points just over a month before the election—yet the same actors are already raising the prospect of electoral manipulation. This raises an obvious question: if the opposition is indeed heading for such a decisive victory, why prepare the ground to contest the result? We have already written about how flawed or manipulated polling can lead to unrest, as seen in Georgia after the 2023 elections, where, pointing to their own polling data, the opposition—backed by Western media and EU leaders—refused to validate their electoral defeat.
There is an old Communist adage: ‘accuse your opponents of what you are doing.’ It seems that Mr Kész has perfectly mastered this, as he accuses Orbán of ‘falsifying or invalidating an election’, while it increasingly seems that the opposition is preparing for exactly the same in the event of a defeat in April.
Oh, and I almost forgot. Kész further claims that Orbán is acting on behalf of external powers—Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Xi Jinping—with the ultimate aim of dissolving the European Union. These are serious accusations backed by zero facts or evidence, while the author, of course, fails to mention that the European Union and the former Democrat administration of the United States have tried everything in their power to overthrow Orbán and have supported their respective opposition challengers from time to time, both politically and with resources.
So, the situation is essentially this, contrary to what Zoltán Kész insists: Hungary’s election will take place amid an unprecedented security and energy crisis, partly induced by Brussels’ and Kyiv’s alignment in blocking Budapest from Russian oil supplies and by the negative consequences of the deteriorating situation in the Middle East. In such a situation, both international actors and citizens tend to rally behind incumbents to maintain stability. Alongside the numerous flaws of the Hungarian opposition, this would be the primary reason if Viktor Orbán secures another electoral victory in April—not some kind of grand conspiracy orchestrated by Washington, Moscow, and Beijing to keep him in power.
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