Referring to the fourth consecutive election victory of the governing parties, he stated that “Hungary has received the fourth dose, and I can inform you that the patient has fully recovered”. He said the recipe for the cure for progressive dominance “is available for use, it’s there to be taken for free”. In his address, he summed up the ingredients in 12 points.
He said the first point of the Hungarian recipe is that “we must play by our own rules, you can only win if you don’t accept solutions and paths offered by others”. Those who play by the rules of their opponents will lose.
He said the second point is national conservatism in internal politics because “the cause of the nation is not an issue of ideology, and not even an issue of tradition”. Politicians must remain on the side of electors, and “we decided to stop migration and to build a wall on the southern border because the Hungarian people said they don’t want illegal immigrants”. The progressives want to force their pipe dreams on society; however, when it comes to important issues, people do not like left-wing nightmares, he said.
He described the supremacy of the national interest in foreign politics as the third point. He said the nation is first, “Hungary first, America first,” we need an interest-based foreign policy.
Regarding the war in Ukraine, he said “Russia is the aggressor, Ukraine is the victim; we condemn the aggressor and help the victim”. Hungarians are happy to help, but “they don’t want to pay the price of the war because this is not their war,” he explained.
He said with war come sanctions, inflation spirals out of control, the economy stagnates, and war makes people impoverished. “Our goal is to restore peace, not to continue the war because this is our national interest,” he stressed.
As the fourth point, Mr Orbán drew attention to the significance of the media. “We are only able to showcase the mad ideas of the progressive Left if we have media that help us to do so,” he said, adding that left-wing opinions can only appear to be in the majority because the media amplify their voice; modern western media align themselves with the views of the Left.
He mentioned exposing the intentions of opponents as the fifth point. The existence of media support is a necessary, but insufficient condition of victory; it is also necessary to break down taboos, he highlighted.
He said “what we do here in Hungary is that we reveal what the Left are preparing for before they actually do so,” and “first they will deny it, but success will be even greater when it is finally revealed that we were right”.
He observed that we have here, for instance, LGBTQ propaganda targeting children, “this is still only a new thing here in Hungary, but we have already destroyed it; we exposed this issue and held a referendum about it,” and the vast majority of Hungarians rejected the sensitisation of children. “By having revealed what the Left are preparing for at an early stage, we forced them into a defensive position, and eventually, they were compelled to admit that this was indeed their plan as they attacked our initiative,” he said.
He mentioned the economy as the sixth point. “When we came into power, we decided that it was only possible to pursue an economic policy that was useful for the majority of electors,” he stated.
He observed that “even those who don’t vote for us stand to benefit from us” which is the opposite of the progressive Left where “even those who voted for them stand to lose by them”.
He highlighted that people want jobs, not economic theories, they want to make progress in their lives and want a better life for their children than the one they had. If a right-wing government is unable to deliver all that, they are doomed to failure, he pointed out.
As the seventh point, he stressed that “we mustn’t be pushed to the side”. “We may well gain enormous popularity on Internet forums by fabricating and spreading conspiracy theories,” but “in actual fact, we push a large percentage of voters away from ourselves, we find ourselves pushed to the side, and then we lose in the end,” he explained.
Mr Orbán mentioned daily reading as the eighth point, highlighting that no better device than books has been invented yet for understanding and explaining complex issues.
He said the ninth point is that “you must have faith,” a lack of faith is dangerous. “If you don’t believe that there will be a final reckoning and that you will be accountable for your actions before the Lord, you think you may do anything in your power,” he said.
The Prime Minister said seeking friends is the tenth point. “If you want to find advancement in politics, you should never focus on that which you disagree on with someone else, but should seek common points of understanding,” he pointed out.
He said the eleventh point is the building of communities as there is no conservative political success without functional communities. The fewer communities there are and the lonelier people feel, the more voters go to the liberals, he said.
As the final point, he spoke about the building of institutions. He said a successful policy requires institutions and institutes. Politicians “come and go; however, institutions remain with us for generations,” and institutions have the ability to renew politics intellectually, he added.
At the end of his address, Mr Orbán described 2024 as a crucial year because in that year there will presidential and congressional elections in the United States and European parliamentary elections in Europe. These two venues designate the two fronts of the battle fought for western civilisation, he laid down.
He said “today we don’t have either in our hands, despite the fact that we would need both”. We have two years to prepare, Mr Orbán indicated, adding that the Hungarian lesson is there is no miracle weapon, “there’s only hard work”.
