PM Orbán: Former justice minister Judit Varga had skills to be prime minister

Judit Varga had the skills to be prime minister, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in an interview posted on the YouTube channel of Mandiner on Sunday morning.

Orbán told the Hotel Lentulai podcast that the appearance of a “born talent” such as Judit Varga, the former justice minister, was “extremely rare” in politics. He highlighted the importance of experience on which to build and said Judit Varga would have needed another four to eight years, but added that she possessed everything required for somebody to take charge of a country and make important decisions.

He called Judit Varga “brilliant” and said what had happened to her was “painful and infuriating” as well as a “great waste” for the country. Orbán said Judit Varga had “suffered through” the last year or year and a half in office, wanting to resign on at least three occasions, saying she couldn’t take what was happening at home. “She held out as long as she could,” he added.

Orbán said timing was the most important in the tactical part of politics, adding that a governing party required self-discipline and could only deal with the opposition 10-15 percent of the time during a non-campaign period, as Hungary is in now. That ratio will ramp up when preparations for the campaign are made, but that point still lies ahead, he said. “That is nothing compared to what is to come,” he added.

Orbán said the debate was not with Péter Magyar or the Tisza Party, but with “their masters”. He added that the foundational structure of Hungarian politics had been unchanged for decades: “The question is: Who is your master?”

Orbán said his was the Hungarian people: “I belong to the Hungarian people, I serve the Hungarians”. He said that the opposition and their masters had never wanted what was good for Hungarians; rather, they had looked abroad to find what the country might need. Foreign powers, who want to influence events in Hungary, always find those kinds of people, he added.

That is why the debate with the Tisza Party and Péter Magyar continues in Brussels from month to month, he said. Orbán said it was “funny, but also a little tragic” to consider that even people who didn’t support the governing alliance still do well, while those who vote for the opposition will be worse off. “And still they vote for them,” he added.