HUNGARY: Prime Minister Viktor Orban demands four more years at the steering wheel of Hungary's "fast and bold racing car", at an election rally attended by hundreds of thousands of supporters

Record ID: 565190

  • Title: HUNGARY: Prime Minister Viktor Orban demands four more years at the steering wheel of Hungary's "fast and bold racing car", at an election rally attended by hundreds of thousands of supporters
  • Date: 29th March 2014
  • Summary: BUDAPEST, HUNGARY (MARCH 29, 2014) (REUTERS) CROWD CHEERING AND WAVING FLAGS AT HEROES SQUARE FLAGS WAVING AND PRIME MINISTER VIKTOR ORBAN ON STAGE CROWD WAVING BANNERS (SOUNDBITE) (Hungarian) HUNGARIAN PRIME MINISTER, VIKTOR ORBAN, SAYING: "We have come here today to tell each other, the country and the world, that we seek four more years. Four more years." CROWD CLAPPING (SOUNDBITE) (Hungarian) HUNGARIAN PRIME MINISTER, VIKTOR ORBAN, SAYING: "Working together with you we have transformed Hungary. From a ragged, sluggish drag with a flat tyre we have built a reliable, fast and bold racing car." CROWD CLAPPING AND WAVING FLAGS ORBAN ON STAGE AND CROWD WAVING FLAGS AND BANNERS CROWD CHEERING AND WAVING FLAGS AT HEROES SQUARE
  • Embargoed: 13th April 2014 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Hungary
  • Country: Hungary
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA7MZYZ3A4TSQP6E9YG9303CZBL
  • Story Text: Prime Minister Viktor Orban demanded four more years at the steering wheel of Hungary's "fast and bold racing car" on Saturday (March 29) at an election rally attended by hundreds of thousands of supporters.
    Orban's ruling centre-right Fidesz party is firmly on track to win the April 6 election, according to opinion polls, despite concerns among foreign investors and in the European Union about its unorthodox economic policies and some other measures.
    Throngs of people waved national white, green and red flags as they headed through central Budapest to Heroes' Square, where Orban shot to fame in 1989 by calling for the withdrawal of Soviet troops from then-communist Hungary.

    "We have come here today to tell each other, the country and the world, that we seek four more years," said Orban, sporting an orange tie, the trademark colour of Fidesz, as he addressed the crowd filling the sunlit square and nearby streets.

    "Working together with you we have transformed Hungary. From a battered, sluggish old banger with a flat tyre we have built a reliable, fast and bold racing car," he told the crowd.
    Victory next week would hand Orban, a volatile maverick to many in the wider world, his second consecutive term in power and third in total.
    To his supporters, 50-year-old Orban is a patriotic hero who defends Hungary's interests against foreign encroachment. His critics accuse him of centralising power and filling key public sector posts with party loyalists.
    Rating agency Standard & Poor's, which raised its outlook on Hungary's "junk"-rated debt to stable from negative on Friday (March 28), said some of Orban's reforms had weakened the checks and balances between branches of power.
    Orban's government says it has saved Hungary from collapse under a Greek-style debt pile inherited from the Socialists in 2010 and that an election landslide which gave them a two-thirds majority in parliament justified the sweeping reforms.
    The leftist opposition grouping, led by Socialist party Chairman Attila Mesterhazy, will hold a rally on Sunday (March 30).
    Orban's government, which slapped banks with Europe's highest bank levy and imposed "crisis taxes" on the service sector, got Hungary off the European Union's black list of fiscal sinners after nine years, mostly under Socialist rule.
    Budapest has also paid back an International Monetary Fund loan that pulled Hungary back from the brink of collapse in 2008.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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