this is bbc news. we will have the headlines and all the main news stories for you at the top of the hour as newsday continues straight after hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. viktor orban can make a strong claim to be europe's most successful leader. after four consecutive election victories, he's admired by cultural conservatives and nationalists from moscow to washington. he wins elections, yes — but is he a democrat or has he subverted democracy and undermined the cause

of freedom — notjust in hungary, but across the eu? well, my guest, zsuzsanna szelenyi, was his ally in the early days of the fidesz party. now she is an arch—critic. but has orban found a politicalformula — illiberal democracy — for which his opponents have no answer? zsuzsanna szelenyi, welcome to hardtalk. thank you for inviting me. it's a pleasure to have you on the show. when you look at your home country, hungary, today, in terms of its politics, its political culture,

what do you see? well, hungary is in trouble. this is what i see first. it is diverting for a track where we entered 30 years ago, the western way of life. the generation of politicians which are characterised by fidesz, viktor orban's party, where i started my political career 32 years ago, we thought we are the party of the west. actually, orban, even 15 years ago, mentioned in a speech that fidesz party is the new western generation, and what we see today is everything but that. so that, of course, makes me very sad. and i think hungary is a trouble for hungarians, and also for europeans. yeah, the scale of the trouble that you see hungary being in is pretty obvious — if one looks at the title of your new book, viktor orban, you call it, and the subversion of hungary: tainted democracy. it is pretty extraordinary

to think that, what, three decades ago you and orban were like that. you were political allies, you were co—founders of this fidesz movement. well, fidesz was a fascinating party which was established in 1988 as a youth party. and it's one of the most successful party, i think, definitely in eastern europe, but maybe even in europe. and it was a liberal alternative and radical organisation... this is how we defined ourselves. yeah. it wanted to dismantle the communist system. it looked to the west for inspiration. it was all about freedom and democracy and a sense of civil society which was absolutely of the west, not of the totalitarian moscow soviet experience. yes. not only. even among the hungarian opposition party, fidesz party was a very liberal party, very pro—civil society. we thought that democracy can

be born only from the bottom, and not from the top. we believed in the control of any power and in rule of law. and also, we had a historic awareness, because hungary had a history of very divisive parties during the 20th century. and most of the time, this led the country into historic trouble. but on reflection, do you think you got orban wrong or do you think orban fundamentally changed? well, definitely changed. i mean, i think i am like i was. i still believe in liberal democracy and that hungary is a western country. fidesz party, under the leadership of viktor orban, started to change significantly from 1993. basically, orban, when he was elected as party president — it was in �*93 — he pulled the party to the right. i think it was a rather opportunistic move. he basically thought that he can grow bigger

on the right than in the liberal centre. and it was fascinating to see how orban and his circle basically reprofiled fidesz party as a right—wing party. i left the fidesz at 1994, together with a lot of other people who thought that fidesz�*s original strategy was in the centre. and so i was more an observer ever since, regarding fidesz. but of course, i know many fidesz people even today. so i keep track of the party's development. and even fidesz... orban... orban could get to government. so he was successful in profiling fidesz as a right—wing conservative party. and he became a prime minister already in �*98. he did. he had one term. a coalition.

and then, of course, he was booted out. exactly. and for eight years after that, the more progressive parties in hungary, left of centre progressive parties, were in power. and viktor orban's contention, to explain himself today, is that those centre—left progressive parties and their politics fundamentally failed hungary. they actually undermined hungary's culture, sense of itself and sense of identity. and that's a message which the hungarian people for the last 13 years appear to have bought. well, when fidesz moved to the right, it modernised hungarian nationalism and... in a very successful way. in a very successful way, yes. obviously, there was an appetite for that. and orban could figure some kind of national identity, which was important.

and he was very successful around the early 2000s in demonstrating that hungary was a successful country — as it is. and it was very... i mean, it was very successful. hungaryjoined european union and nato in those years. so he was definitely a successful prime minister when he was in coalition government, but he still failed in 2002. and he made a very radical turn then, that time. he gave a big speech saying that we can't be in opposition because the nation cannot be opposition, which... in essence, he said fidesz is the nation. he wrapped himself in the hungarian flag. exactly. and my point to you is, when you say this man over the last 13 years has subverted hungarian democracy, the immediate response has to be this is a man who has taken his message to the people on four different occasions and he has won a clear, overwhelming majority on all of those occasions. this is not a man who has tried to destroy democracy. he has used democracy. so, 0rban got to power again

at 2010, as you say, after the 2008 financial crisis. so it was a very fortunate moment because hungary made very badly in the financial crisis. and he got a landslide victory, which was a genuine victory. and ever since, he changed the environment for the elections. and it's very interesting to see, whether hungary's a democracy or not, what actually democracy is, because fidesz and 0rban claims that this is a democratic party and hungary is a democratic country because there are elections. but the question is whether this is enough for a democracy. and i think that even in a minimum understanding of democracy is that there are limits for the abuse of power, because that is autocracy. so what happened since 2002, there are elections in hungary. they may even be free — say, everyone can vote. but they're definitely not fair. and there are various reasons how i can prove it's

not a fair election. and one is that fidesz party, which is now the governing party, even at the state party in hungary with supermajority, it means that it can change the constitution... and it had. and amendments to the constitution have come by the flood. there have been, i think, more than a dozen during 0rban's time in power. first, they actually rewrote the constitution as a fundamental law. and they already changed and amended their own constitution 12 times in the last 12 years. so this demonstrates very well that they can rewrite the rules of the game — for example, the rules of the game of the election system. i give you an example. for example, there are plenty of opposition parties, and one of the main concerns of the opposition to get together and to cooperate... because the hungarian election system is majoritarian.

so either—or, it's winner takes all. so they have to work together. but before each elections, the election rules are changed. either the party financing or how opposition parties can cooperate. there were, in the last five years, more than 12 or 20 changes in the election rules. i don't think anybody would dispute that 0rban has tried using his power in the parliament to make the playing field as favourable to him as he possibly can — within the rules, within the constitution. i understand that. but your case is somewhat exaggerated, is it not? you claim, for example, that the hungarian media has been completely bought up by mr 0rban and his associates. i look at the hungarian media landscape today and i see a lot of independent voices. there are all sorts of different online media platforms that are engaged in investigations, criticising the government, challenging the government.

the idea that this is a sort of putin—style country here dissident voices in the media are completely repressed, it's not true. well, the 21st century autocracies do not work like dozens of years ago. you don't have to use violence or you don't have to put anyone in prison. it's enough if you secure one third of your voters' votes and then you are the king, because this is what the hungarian election system requires. and if you dominate the media and you co—ordinate state media, which is not like bbc — it's dominated by fidesz party appointees. and private media and the tabloid press, and it's coordinated with... ..continuous billboard posters and moral panic campaigns. that's such an incredible noise that, of course, you canfind... it's a loud noise.

but, for example, just today, i went on the direkt36 website. yes. now, they're a big player in the hungarian media. a lot of particularly young hungarians follow them. their lead headline today is, quote, "database exposes hungarian 0ligarchs "hiding huge fortunes." you know, this is being published day by day in hungary and people are reading it. you know, you cannot suggest to me that hungary is a police state where 0rban ensures that criticism is nullified. it's not a police state. that's right. and definitely, tens of thousand people can read this article, but millions do not read because they only get access to public media. but the main thing here... why do you say they only get access to public media? in fact, the viewing figures for public media are declining rapidly in hungary. are you suggesting to me that people in hungary don't have access to the internet?

yes, they do have. and of course, the government also has a fascinating tool of targeting media. so they really have a same message to share with different sources and channels. but let me tell you something else, because what you raised, it's a very important issue. so there are a lot of abuses and corruption allegations. the thing is that there are never any follow up because the state institutions, like the public prosecutor who should stand up in such a case when it gets some information about abuse of finances, it's not doing its work. because every state institution is actually nominated by viktor 0rban, and these are very loyal people for him. so there is no such thing as an independentjudiciary? is that your contention? well, the president, the chief prosecutor, the constitution court members, the competition office,

the media authorities is all nominated by viktor 0rban. and these institutions are there formally, but they actually do not work. the thing is, what is the right response, then, for believers in democracy such as yourself? i have to be honest with you, i noticed that, in the arc of your career, you walked away from politics for a while, then you came back in 2012. you tried to establish a party called together. and if i'm not wrong, in 2018, when togetherfought in the election of 2018, i think you scored less than 1% of the national vote. and then you walked away from politics again and now you're in academia. so have you given up? uh, no, i didn't give up because i wrote this book. no, i understand that. and the book's very important. but you gave up in terms of active politics. the party that you tried to launch, let's be honest, failed. and i look at the polls today. hungarians still, despite economic crisis, are sticking with 0rban. yeah, well, in the last couple

of months, there was one major news overwhelming in hungary. so, if you would come to hungary, you could have seen a huge campaign which blames the european union for sanctions and the high prices. now, this is the incredible message control which viktor 0rban and his party can do with their media dominance. but of course, it doesn't answer the question what it is about the opposition. mm. the opposition is definitely in a bad shape. it's after the elections. they have to figure out a new strategy. they also have a problem of... it's a chronic leadership crisis. this is a conversation that goes far beyond just hungary. you know, there are many parts of the world where, frankly, illiberal democracy, if we use 0rban's term, or indeed authoritarianism, are on the rise. and one can only sort of look to putin's russia to see where it can take a country. so the question for those who believe in western—style democracy and civil society action is how you go

about challenging those successful authoritarians. hungary is an experiment. 0rban sees an experiment. he's using an illiberal experiment and he's demonstrating and producing a playbook of how to play this, which is sellable. other people can use it. other political entrepreneurs like he is. the hungarian opposition will sit together, i think, after a kind of mourning period, like it did in previous elections, after previous election defeats. and they have to come up with a new strategy. and this is an ever—growing challenge until they succeed. but 0rban is not only a challenge for hungarians. this is what i'd like to say. it's really a challenge now for the european union, where he is sitting around the table of the 27 leaders. and he is... you know, the other countries

and the european political elite, conservative included, they have to figure out how to deal with the person who is not regarding liberal democratic rules as a norm. and that's an interesting point. do you think it is viable for you in the hungarian opposition — and i'm calling you part of that even though you're now more of a writer than an activist. do you think it's viable for you to take the position of telling the eu they should punish hungary by withholding massive amounts of economic assistance — and it could run into the tens of billions because hungary's very reliant on the eu. is that a message, telling the eu to be tougher with hungary, that would play well with the hungarian public? so my comment on this first is that for... we are 12 years after fidesz, 0rban got this extraordinary power and started to abuse the hungarian situation, and it took ten years for the eu to take a serious step, so it's quite late and it's definitely not satisfactory. and what i'm saying is not...

that the eu should take itself seriously, because it should keep the european union together. it is extraordinarily important in our time we live in. i'm also saying that liberal democratic parties or countries' leaders should also demonstrate success. they have to demonstrate for their own people and for other europeans that this is the best possible way of governance, because this is what viktor 0rban is questioning. he is openly questioning whether the western liberal democracy is still the best form of governance. so, first of all, i think the resistance, the resilience of the liberal democracy is super important and it must show success and result. it is clear 0rban has thrived as a culture warrior. he has, for example, made sure that in hungary gay marriage remains illegal. he has refused to accede

to european demands that he gives migrants into the company better treatment, more rights. he refuses to consider giving greater rights, better treatment to the roma minority in hungary. are these all...? these are all cultural issues, in a sense. are these issues where the opposition should choose to fight, i.e., should the opposition engage in a quote—unquote "culture war" with 0rban? well, that's a very important question. well, what's the answer? i don't think it's... he calls it culture war, but it's actually in identity politics what he's doing. and what fidesz party is doing with this overwhelming dominance of the media and communication is that they introduced several years ago the system of perpetual moral panic campaign. first, when i was running in 2014, it was that liberals and communists — equal — are destroying the life

what we would like to live. then, in 2018, following the migration crisis in europe, that was a huge conspiracy theory campaign that liberal communists want to invade europe and european culture by migrants out of europe. so that was... that was always a very, very tough issue. and now recently... the question is, should the opposition be avowedly liberal and progressive, or should it be small—c conservative because that's what the hungarian public want? it's not only conservative, but let's say it's a traditional... it's a traditional voting base, definitely, who go after this kind of campaigns. but i think what the opposition's task in hungary, and probably other liberal parties, is that there is a strong feeling of community in the world. we live in a very fearful world. there is too many crises around. there is extremely fast changes. and i can imagine that it's very threatening for really a lot of people. and believing in conspiracy

theories and moral panic is very efficient in this — not only in hungary, but any other countries as well. so it sounds like you wouldn't go too far and be too progressive as a viable opposition in hungary. i wonder on one key issue what you'd do, and that is russia? 0rban says to the hungarian people, "we're paying huge prices for our energy "because eu sanctions are hitting us "harder than they're hitting russia. they don't work. "i don't want to support sanctions. "i certainly won't support sending arms "through our territory to the ukrainians. "in essence, i still want to be putin's friend. "i want to have his energy. "i even want him to build my nuclear power plant "at paks ii." so are you prepared to fight on that territory, too? should the opposition be absolutely with ukraine and say hungary must be part of the european consensus against putin?

so, in 2007, when viktor 0rban was still in opposition, he gave quite a fascinating speech when he explained to the young fidesz people why fidesz is a western country. and he finished his speech with the term which sounds like this: "oil may come from the east, "but freedom always comes from the west." so what freedom means is sovereignty, is security, it's progress. it's the wellbeing of hungarians. this is what we mean by the west. and this is how he profiled his own party 15 years ago. now, when he got to power, he changed completely and he started to make a series of deals with vladimir putin. and today, 12 years later, hungary is more dependent on russia than 12 years earlier when he was still anti—russia. so that is a very tricky thing, and there is a lot of secrecy around this relationship. so i wonder what in this sense

drives viktor 0rban, really? and when he says that... i mean, surely it's simple — power drives viktor 0rban. he still has it. and frankly, it seems like he will keep it for a long time. do you accept that? he's keeping now. but, you know, ithink we are in a very complicated and very sensitive point. 0rban is a person who is ready and who was always ready to take huge risks. for example, in 2015, at the migration crisis, he started to speak against the migrants, everfirst among the european leaders. and a few years later, he got some name by this because actually a lot of people were worried about the migrants. so i think this is a little bit what we see today. he speaks of something which he believes a lot of people secretly believes, but don't dare to say. let's say russia might win.

he might also count on changes in us leadership and the west's persistence, whether it's ready to support ukraine or not. well, i think that, yes, hungary must support ukraine. we have to stay with the europeans in this sense, because this is where our future is. we are no—one out in the cold without the european union, and it is a security issue. and it's also a moral and strategic decision. so, yes, i think the hungarian opposition should stay with europe. all right. well, zsuzsanna szelenyi, thank you so much for joining me on hardtalk. thank you. thank you very much.

hello. the weekend was a tale of two halves. we had a weather front with us and a lot of cloud on saturday, mild atlantic air. sunday brought high pressure with us and clearer skies. now that high pressure stays with us for much of the week, but round the periphery of it, towards the north, as you can see, we'll see, well, cloudy skies at times of weather, windier weather as well, midweek. but for the most part, that high pressure keeps the weather fronts at bay, particularly in the south, where temperatures are falling away, a little bit of mist and fog as we head towards morning and around for the rush hour. but with a bit more cloud creeping in across the west of scotland and northern ireland, more limited our frost here, not for eastern scotland and a much colder start for england and wales, —3,—4 celsius in rural areas and some ice to scrape off the cars. but the fog should lift fairly readily, and it looks like we'll have less high cloud around compared with sunday. so bright blue skies, but more limited brightness and sunshine for northern ireland and western scotland. after a frosty start

in the east, though, we could see some sunshine lifting till ten across parts of scotland, ten celsius in belfast. that's a little bit above average, further south, about average. now then as we go through monday evening and overnight, this weather front starts to take shape across scotland and northern ireland, so, again, limiting ourfrost here, but not in the south. again, a cold night, —3 celsius out in the sticks across countryside areas. for tuesday, therefore, probably more more fog in southern areas and a slower to clear. and it could stay grey and cold for much of the day in some parts. then we've got that weak weather front slipping down across northern ireland and northern england, but brightening skies follow across scotland. so i actually think more sunshine for the northwest of scotland compared with monday. then as we go into wednesday, those tightly packed isobars arrive, our weather front as well. we could have a spell of severe gale force winds towards the north later on wednesday, wednesday afternoon onwards, and it will bring with it then wednesday night in particular a spell of quite significant rain hill snow. but further south, hopefully a bit more breeze just to lift that fog, less issues around, but certainly the prospect

of some more in southern areas where the winds are a little bit lighter and again, a frosty start. so as we move into the latter part of the week, we've got that chance of some rain in the north, but the high pressure ruling the roost further south. so i think the main point about this week is that it's going to be largely dry away from scotland in particular, but there'll be some frost and fog in the mornings and chillierfor a time on thursday.

welcome to newsday. reporting live from singapore, i'm mariko 0i. the headlines: after the blowout, the fallout. diplomatic tensions rise following america's shooting down of china's observation balloon. iran's supreme leader is to pardon thousands of prisoners, including many who took part in recent anti—government protests. reports that ukraine's defence minister is to be replaced, following claims of a corruption scandal in his department. and american music's big night is about to get under way. we'll bring you the latest from the grammys. voice-over: live

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