Orban seeks sweeping new powers in virus fight
Hungary's parliament was on Monday likely to endorse a bill giving nationalist premier Viktor Orban sweeping new powers he says he needs to fight the brand new coronavirus pandemic.
Critics at home and abroad have condemned the "anti-coronavirus defense law", saying it offers Orban unnecessary and unlimited power in a ruse to cement his leadership rather than battle the virus. Orban's government proposed the bill to parliament earlier this month to allow wide rule-by-decree powers to tackle the virus under a protracted state of emergency.
In line with the draft posted on the parliament website on March 20, the bill would permit the federal government to indefinitely extend the state of emergency and its own associated powers of rule by decree, removing the current requirement of MPs to approve any extension.
In addition, it introduces jail terms of up to five years for anybody spreading "fake news" about the virus or the measures against it, stoking new worries for press freedom.Since taking power this year 2010, the self-styled "illiberal" nationalist has transformed Hungary's political, judicial and constitutional landscape.
The 56-year-old has frequently clashed with European institutions, NGOs and rights groups with Brussels suing Hungary for "breaching" EU values charges fiercely denied by Budapest.Orban has given criticism of regulations short shrift, attractive to "European moaners" to let Hungary defend itself against the virus.
His justice minister, Judit Varga, told foreign reporters in a briefing on Friday that critics of the bill were "fighting imaginary demons and not working with reality".Opposition MPs the other day refused to allow government fast-track the bill through parliament.Nonetheless it is nearly certain to be produced law as it pertains before MPs on Monday as Orban's Fidesz party enjoys a two-thirds majority.
Agnes Kunhalmi, a lawmaker for socialist opposition party MSZP, urged Orban to "not perpetrate political games against the opposition" and add an expiration date to the bill."There is concern that the government will continue its conservative-liberal practices, that will lead to an even deeper crisis," she told AFP.
Akos Hadhazy, an independent MP, told AFP that Orban didn't need any "extraordinary empowerment" as his party already controls parliament and had instead setup a "trap for the opposition" with pro-government media accusing it to be privately of the virus by opposing the bill. "Parliament is merely a machine to vote anything he wants," he said.
Criticism of the bill in addition has result from abroad with the UN human rights office saying it had been following the Hungarian developments "with concern".
The Council of Europe also wrote a letter to Orban the other day, warning an "indefinite and uncontrolled state of emergency cannot guarantee that the essential principles of democracy will be viewed."Hungary ordered a state of emergency on March 11 as part of protective measures aimed at stemming the spread of the COVID-19 virus, that have included the closure of borders to non-national passenger traffic.
The EU member state of 10 million has so far reported a lot more than 400 confirmed coronavirus cases with 13 deaths. More than 12,100 tests have been carried out, the government said Sunday.The fiercely anti-immigration Orban has blamed migration for the spread of the virus, saying "primarily foreigners brought in the disease".
Orban's latest move may also strain already difficult relations between Fidesz and the European Parliament's conservative EPP grouping which includes dithered over expelling the party from their ranks.Austrian-Hungarian author Paul Lendvai has said the machine installed by Orban has been "up to now seen as a 'hybrid state', neither democracy nor dictatorship," and asked if the new powers could turn Hungary into "the EU's first dictatorship".
