Hungary’s Jobbik Party Shows Itself to Be Putinist, Not Hungarian Nationalist

Paul Goble

            Staunton, November 26 – Hungary’s extreme right Jobbik Party, which has long pushed Budapest to take up the cause of ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine, is now even refusing to discuss an appeal by Finno-Ugric peoples in Russia for similar support, a pattern that underscores that Jobbik is less a Hungarian nationalist party than a Putinist front organization.

            Last week, the Free Idel-Ural organization called on the Hungarian party to support the Finno-Ugric peoples in the Russian Federation just as consistently as it supports the ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine. (See windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/11/hungarys-jobbik-party-could-turn-out-to.html.)

            But since then the party has now refused even to speak with journalists about doing so, Ramazan Alpaut of Radio Svoboda’s IdelUral portal says, an obvious indication that Jobbik is following the Putin line of supporting secessionist groups everywhere except in the Russian Federation (idelreal.org/a/29621460.html).

            That position is at least hypocritical and, in the case of Jobbik, adds weight to charges that the party receives illegal funding from Moscow.  Tracking such “inconsistencies” in the positions of parties like that and exposing them to public view is a critically important means of countering the Kremlin’s propaganda machine.