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In the months leading up to elections for the European Parliament, Hungarians were warned that casting a ballot against Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n would be a vote for all-out war.<\/p>\n
The right-wing Fidesz party cast the June 9 election as an existential struggle, one that could preserve peace in Europe if Orb\u00e1n won \u2014 or fuel widespread instability if he didn\u2019t. To sell that bold claim, Orb\u00e1n used a sprawling pro-government media empire that\u2019s dominated the country\u2019s political discourse for more than a decade.<\/p>\n
The tactic worked, as it has since Orb\u00e1n returned to power in 2010, and his party came first in the elections \u2014 though not by the margins it was used to. An upstart party, led by a former Fidesz insider, attracted disaffected voters and took 29% of the vote to Fidesz\u2019s 44%.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything has fallen apart in Hungary. The state essentially does not function, there\u2019s only propaganda and lies,\u201d said P\u00e9ter Magyar, the leader of that new party who has emerged in recent months as perhaps the\u00a0most formidable challenge yet to Orb\u00e1n\u2019s rule<\/a>.<\/p>\n Magyar\u2019s Respect and Freedom (TISZA) party campaigned on promises to root out deep-seated corruption in the government. He has also been outspoken about what he sees as the damage Orb\u00e1n\u2019s \u201cpropaganda factory\u201d has done to Hungary\u2019s democracy.<\/p>\n \u201cIt might be very difficult to imagine from America or Western Europe what the propaganda and the state machinery is like here,\u201d Magyar said in an interview before elections with The Associated Press. \u201cThis parallel reality is like the Truman Show. People believe that it\u2019s reality.\u201d<\/p>\n Since 2010, Orb\u00e1n\u2019s government has promoted hostility to migrants and LGBTQ+ rights, distrust of the European Union, and a belief that Hungarian-American financier George Soros \u2014 who is Jewish and one of\u00a0Orb\u00e1n\u2019s enduring foes<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 is engaged in secret plots to destabilize Hungary, a classic antisemitic trope.<\/p>\n Such messaging has delivered Orb\u00e1n\u2019s party four consecutive two-thirds majorities in parliament and, most recently, the most Hungarian delegates in the EU legislature.<\/p>\n But according to P\u00e9ter Krek\u00f3, an analyst and head of the Political Capital think tank in Budapest, Orb\u00e1n has created \u201can almost Orwellian environment\u201d where the government weaponizes control of a majority of news outlets to limit Hungarians\u2019 decisions.<\/p>\n \u201cHungary has become a quite successful informational autocracy, or spin dictatorship,\u201d Krek\u00f3 said.<\/p>\n The restriction of Hungary\u2019s free press directly affects informed democratic participation. Opposition politicians have long complained that they only get five minutes of air time every four years on public television, the legal minimum, to present their platforms before elections.<\/p>\n In contrast, public television and radio channels consistently echo talking points communicated both by Fidesz and a network of think tanks and pollsters that receive funding from the government and the party. Their analysts routinely appear in affiliated media to bolster government narratives, while independent commentators rarely, if ever, appear.<\/p>\n During the campaign in May, Hungary\u2019s electoral commission issued a warning to the public broadcaster for repeatedly airing Fidesz campaign videos during news segments, a violation of impartiality rules. The broadcaster carried on regardless.<\/p>\n Magyar, who won a seat in the European Parliament, credits his new party\u2019s success partly to its ability to sidestep Orb\u00e1n\u2019s dominance by meeting directly with voters and developing a large following on social media.<\/p>\n But in largely rural Hungary, even those with a strong online presence struggle to compete with Fidesz\u2019s control of traditional outlets.<\/p>\n According to press watchdog Reporters Without Borders, Orb\u00e1n has used media buyouts by government-connected \u201coligarchs\u201d to build \u201ca true media empire subject to his party\u2019s orders.\u201d The group estimates that such buyouts have given Orb\u00e1n\u2019s party control of some 80% of Hungary\u2019s media market resources. In 2021, it put Orb\u00e1n on its list of media \u201cpredators,\u201d the first EU leader to earn the distinction.<\/p>\n The title didn\u2019t come out of nowhere: in 2016, Hungary\u2019s oldest daily newspaper was\u00a0suddenly shuttered<\/a>\u00a0after being bought by a businessman with links to Orb\u00e1n. In 2018, nearly 500 pro-government outlets were\u00a0simultaneously donated<\/a>\u00a0by their owners to a foundation headed by Orb\u00e1n loyalists, creating a sprawling right-wing media conglomerate. And in 2020, nearly the entire staff of Hungary\u2019s largest online news portal, Index,\u00a0resigned en masse<\/a>\u00a0after its lead editor was fired under political pressure.<\/p>\n A network of independent journalists and online outlets that continue to function in Hungary struggles to remain competitive, said G\u00e1bor Poly\u00e1k, head of the Media and Communication Department at E\u00f6tv\u00f6s Lor\u00e1nd University in Budapest.<\/p>\n The government is the largest advertiser in Hungary, he said. A study by watchdog M\u00e9rt\u00e9k Media Monitor showed up to 90% of state advertising revenue is awarded to pro-Fidesz media outlets, keeping them afloat.<\/p>\n The government\u2019s efforts to control media have moved beyond television, radio and newspapers, shifting into social media posts that are boosted by paid advertisements.<\/p>\n Hungary spent the most in the entire 27-member EU \u2014 nearly $4.8 million \u2014 on political ads on platforms owned by Facebook\u2019s parent company, Meta, in a 30-day period in May and June, outspending Germany, which has more than eight times the population, according to a recent report based on publicly available data compiled by Political Capital, M\u00e9rt\u00e9k Media Monitor and fact-checking site Lakmusz.<\/p>\n The vast majority of that spending came from Fidesz or its proxies, the report found.<\/p>\n One major spender is Megafon, a self-declared training center for aspiring conservative influencers. In the same 30-day period, the group spent $800,000 on boosting its pro-government content on Meta platforms, more than what was spent in total by 16 EU countries in the same period.<\/p>\n With government narratives so pervasive across mediums, a level of political polarization has emerged that can reach deep into the private lives of Hungarians. In recent years, the views of Andrea Simon, a 55-year-old entrepreneur from a suburb of Budapest, and her husband Attila Koh\u00e1ri began to drift apart \u2014 fed, according to Simon, by Koh\u00e1ri\u2019s steady diet of pro-government media.<\/p>\n \u201cHe listened to these radio stations where they pushed those simple talking points, it completely changed his personality,\u201d Simon said. \u201cI felt sometimes he\u2019d been kidnapped, and his brain was replaced with a Fidesz brain.\u201d<\/p>\n In December, after 33 years of marriage, they agreed to divorce.<\/p>\n \u201cI said to him several times, \u2018You have to choose: me or Fidesz,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cHe said Fidesz.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, like many Hungarians who hold fast to traditional values in a changing world, Koh\u00e1ri remains a faithful supporter of Orb\u00e1n and his policies, despite the personal cost.<\/p>\n His love of his country and belief that Orb\u00e1n has led Hungary in the right direction have him \u201cclearly convinced that my position is the right one,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it ruined my marriage.\u201d<\/p>\n The media divide also has consequences for Hungary\u2019s finances, says independent lawmaker \u00c1kos Hadh\u00e1zy, who has uncovered dozens of suspected cases of graft involving EU funds.<\/p>\n Such abuses, he said, go largely unaddressed because the majority of voters are unaware of them.<\/p>\n \u201cFollowing the Russian model, (the government) controls state media by hand and spends about 50 billion forints ($135 million) a year on advertisements \u2026 that sustain their own TV networks and websites,\u201d he said. \u201cThe people that consume those media simply don\u2019t hear about these things.\u201d<\/p>\n On a recent day in Mez\u0151cs\u00e1t, a small village on the Hungarian Great Plain, Hadh\u00e1zy inspected the site of an industrial park that was built with 290 million euros ($310 million) in EU funds. The problem, he said, is that since the site was completed in 2017, it has never been active, and the money used to build it has disappeared.<\/p>\n Hadh\u00e1zy said that Hungarians \u201cwho consciously seek out the real news hear about these cases and don\u2019t understand how it\u2019s possible that there are no consequences when I present such things almost daily.\u201d<\/p>\n He continued: \u201cBut it\u2019s not important for the government that nobody hears about them, it\u2019s important that more people hear their lies, and that\u2019s the way it is now. Far more people hear their messages than the facts.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n