Ágnes Heller: Orbán is a tyrant

Jan Smoleński in Political Critique:

Jan Smoleński: Is Viktor Orban a populist?

Agnes Heller*: I do not like the term populist as it is used in the context of Viktor Orban, because it does not say anything. Populists rely typically on poor people. Orban uses nationalistic vocabulary and rhetoric, he mobilizes hatred against the stranger and the alien, but it has nothing to do with populism. It has to do with the right-wing, but this is also questionable, because Orban is a man who is interested only in power.

What would you call him, then?

From the time he became the prime minister of Hungary, Orban was always interested in concentrating all the power in his hands. I would describe him as a tyrant. He is a tyrant because nothing can happen in Hungary that he does not want, and everything that he wants is carried through in Hungary. This is a very tyrannical rule.

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