Hillary Clinton cannot lecture Hungary about “democracy”

Balazs Orban accused the Democrats of wanting to throw their political opponents in prison and import migrant voters.

Failed US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton should look in the mirror before accusing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban of suppressing democracy, argues one of Orban's senior advisers.

Clinton used X on Wednesday to berate former President Donald Trump for praising Orban during his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris the night before. Clinton described Orban as “democrat-killing Hungarian dictator”, He shared a 2018 article claiming that his strict immigration policies, controversial judicial reforms and the expulsion of liberal financier George Soros’s NGO Open Society Foundations “soft fascism.”

Balazs Orban, the political director of Viktor Orban’s office and no relation to the prime minister, responded shortly afterwards.

“Dear Mrs. Clinton,” he wrote on X. “Can I tell you what I think is the death of democracy: the desire to imprison one's political opponents, the failure to organize elections transparently and the attempt to replace dissatisfied voters with migrant voters. In your opinion, which country does this apply to?”

“Every reasonable person reading your comments thinks: ‘First remove the beam from your own eye’”, he concluded.

Viktor Orban has openly expressed his support for Trump, backing the former president's election campaign and meeting with him in Florida earlier this year. The Hungarian president called Trump the only American politician capable of ending the Ukraine conflict and repeatedly claimed that the conflict would never have started if Trump were in the White House in 2022.

Balazs Orban's criticism of Clinton reflects Trump's own disputes with the Democratic Party. The former president has described the numerous criminal proceedings against him as attempts by the Democrats to “arm” the justice system and prevent him from being elected in November. He has also accused Democrats and sympathetic local officials of “Rigging” the election of Biden in 2020 and the allowing of millions of illegal immigrants to enter the country “because they want to register these people to vote.”

Clinton was far less critical of Orban during her time as Secretary of State under President Barack Obama. During a visit to Budapest in 2011, Clinton said the United States was “strongly supports the Prime Minister’s commitment to rebuilding and strengthening the Hungarian economy”, and praised his efforts, “Elimination of corruption that deters foreign investors and entrepreneurs.”