(1/n) Been mulling over Orban & CoVid.
I think, he's weak, and scared.
Endless thread.
@rdanielkelemen @ProfPech @anneapplebaum @APHClarkson @esbalogh @CasMudde @fromTGA @JohnOBrennan2 @thomasomelia @MwiWind

(2/n) OK, so first of all, let’s establish that beyond all talk and spin, Orban’s key opponents is the Hungarian opposition. It is the Hungarian opposition, and no-one else that can (theoretically) throw him out of power.

(3/n) It is his cemented standing at home / the continued debilitation of his domestic opponents which allowed Orban to play his games on the European stage and withstand considerable amount of external pressure every once in a while.

(4/n) Maintaining support / suppress dissent is not at all an easy task, e.g. given the unimaginable amounts that Orban and his clan have been diverting from the state budget and EU-funds, the brazenness with which this is being done, or the maffiesque way they have taken

(5/n) over much of Hungary’s private economy in the last decade.

So the system has to withstand substanial internal pressure.

(6/n) The answer is, at its core, is two-fold, or better said requires two structural elements.

One is the near-complete control over mass media, and thus control over perceived facts and frames in the public sphere.

(7/n) The second is a near-to-complete control over all branches of the state, including the state prosecutor, election authorities and so on. Such control in turn requires (and reproduces) the disapplication of rule of law, and is cemented by a

(8/n) far-reaching personnel overhaul of the entire state with all its agencies whereby they are re-oriented from being expertise- and rules-based to loyalty to the political leadership being the key, if not the only selection criterion.

(9/n) So with these givens in place, let’s answer the question, what reproduces Orban’s control over his opposition. The answers are:

(i) a constant but imaginary war and
(ii) the suppression of the opposition by using the state against it.

(10/n) First on the wars. Hungary has been permanently ‘at war’ with something or somebody, since he again came to power in 2010.

This has been one of the few constants of Hungary’s past decade.

(11/n) However he also needs the war to the imaginary. Real struggles bear real risks, foremost a risk that his performance can be exposed as weak. Imaginary wars (or their perception) in turn can be controlled when you control mass media.

(12/n) The opposition’s suppression happens via various state agencies and ultimately, Fidesz’ 2/3 majority in the Parliament. It means stripping them of resources, impeding access to mass media and altering of the entire competition in a way that all but guarantees their failure

(13/n) while upholding a thin veil of formal correctness.

With the many debilitating / sanctioning tools at his disposal, Orban could (and did) effectively fine-tune, and if needed, quickly redraw the opposition’s options and room for manoeuvre at his will.

(14/n) Now to the point of this thread: I believe that Corona is a huge threat to Orban’s entire rule.

(15/n) For one, he’s lost his comfortable overriding topic: xenophobia. He cannot control the public discourse anymore at his will. Furthermore, this fight is real. Now, he and his empire would need to perform.

(16/n) However, his administration is adversely selected and, as bad luck for all has it, it is the health system that became a key casualty of his decade-long rule (he preferred building scores of football stadiums instead). It is in poor shape by all accounts.

(17/n) So there is no reason to be optimistic about the Hungarian state’s performance on Corona. He cannot divert the public from this topic; he cannot entirely prevent evidence of poor performance to reach the population’s ears, and the opposition will have a voice.

(18/n)
Orban is a believer in formative historical moments that define the political givens for many years afterwards. This is a situation when the populace can turn quickly on him, and it can ignite the grievances it is already harbouring.

(19/n) It is in this light that his enabling law has to be seen.

The key issue is not the emergency powers, those he possessed already by his government declaring emergency.

The law has in my view 3 key functions:

(20/n) First, shift blame to opposition.
Not so easy when you have 2/3 majority in parliament, but he managed by finding something which requires 4/5 majority and thus oppositional consent. (This aspect has been sufficiently discussed in intl. press.)

(21/n) Second, ruling by decrees. The point of this is less that he can now do things he otherwise can’t (you can do pretty much anything in Hungary with a 2/3 majority).

(22/n) Orban wants to remain in control if some of his own MPs turn on him (normally unimaginable), or some of them become sick etc.

See, if he loses 2 MPs, his 2/3 is gone, possibly in moments that are crucial for regime survival.

That is what ruling by decrees is about.

(23/n) Third, possibly the most important, the point on media freedom. The amendment of §337 of the penal code crucially says that even the voicing of true but ‘distorted’ facts can get you in prison for 1-5 years.

(24/n) With the police and the state prosecutor being under tight political control, this means – and every singly person in Hungary knows this – that each journalist is at the executive’s mercy to be detained, and possibly tried.

Even if none end up in jail,

(25/n) Orban knows no journalist wishes to have even a few nights in a cell and/or be tried in a process for several years and he hopes this will achieve the self-censorship that is his goal.

Expect some signalling going forward where the limits of the tolerable are now drawn.