Poland's former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro, wanted on several criminal charges in his home country, has fled Hungary to the United States, he confirmed on Sunday, after being granted asylum from former Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban's government last year. I am in the United States, Ziobro told rightwing Polish broadcaster Republika. I arrived yesterday, and this is my third time travelling around the country, he said.
Hungarian people have given us a mandate to put an end to decades of drifting. They have given us a mandate to open a new chapter in Hungary's history. Not only to change the government, but to change the system as well. To start again.
Istvan Varoczi, a 63-year-old entrepreneur from Cegled, expresses skepticism about polls suggesting Prime Minister Viktor Orban could lose. He emphasizes Orban's long-standing popularity, particularly among older voters, stating, 'I've been watching him for nearly 40 years, I have always voted for him and I will again, I've never been disappointed in him.' Varoczi believes Orban's strength lies in his relatability and connection to the people.
"The police concluded their investigation against me in connection with the Budapest Pride march in June with a recommendation to press charges," he said in a video posted to Facebook. "They accuse me of violating the [new law on] freedom of assembly, which is completely absurd." Karácsony approved the Pride event and took to the streets with hundreds of thousands of marchers in defiance of the ban. Celebrants anointed Orbán "King of European Pride."
Hungary's parliament voted in favor of strengthening the president's position in future, a few months before parliamentary elections where longstanding Prime Minister Viktor Orban faces the biggest challenge to his stranglehold on national politics in years. Conservative opposition leader Peter Magyar and his TISZA party currently have a roughly 10-point lead in opinion polls, with a vote likely in April 2026. Hungary's parliament voted 134 in favor of the bill, with 49 votes against and two abstentions, meeting the two-thirds majority needed for the constitutional change.
Hungarian politicians from the country's ruling right-wing populist Fidesz party accuse national conservative opposition leader Peter Magyar of all sorts of things. They say that the 44-year-old leader of the Tisza party and favorite for the parliamentary elections in spring 2026 is a Brussels mercenary. They call him a Ukrainian agent and a warmonger who wants to forcibly recruit Hungarian men.
Signatories of the 1998 Rome Statute, which established the Hague-based court in 2002, are required to arrest those subject to warrants as soon as they enter their territory which theoretically includes airspace, which is also considered sovereign territory under international law. Hungary, which recently stated its intention to withdraw from the agreement making it a safe space for Putin is surrounded by countries which would be bound by this. However, the ICC, which has 125 member states, has no police force and hence no means of enforcing arrests.
