It’s a big problem if the opposition is in the power’s grip, and it is naive to hope that highly qualified intelligentsia can “conquer” the inhabitants of small villages, our Research Affiliate Andras Bozoki said in an interview with Nepszava.

He talked about the CEU, how the university was forced out of Hungary by the government. He thinks that the government has a plan: the government obtained political power, economic power has been concentrated, now the aim is to gain cultural power. “A new cultural era must be created, which can no longer be reversed. But now it has reached the point where [Hungarian PM Orban] no longer trusts its own people,” he said, adding that “Orban sees the institutions as battle stations, so he seeks to occupy them.”

He argued that “there were no free elections. It's not a free choice if people on both sides don't get at least close to the same amount of information, if the state also gets involved in the campaign on one side, so down the hierarchy from the prime minister to the last mayor, who are existentially interested in a Fidesz victory.”

“Orban cannot be Putin's friend, at best he can only be used, blackmailed, honored, cajoled,” he said. “Orban first voted in favor of sanctions and then started attacking them, so as not to give the impression that he is a member of the community of European democracies on the basis of his values,” he continued.

Read the full interview (in Hungarian) here.