'Trump before Trump': Orban's illiberal model on show in Hungary
"No more public scoldings. No more moralising from podiums," the new charge d'affaires Robert Palladino told guests, including several Hungarian ministers, at this month's US Independence Day celebration.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban wants the European nation to serve as a laboratory of far-right ideas and an inspiration for Trump, whom the nationalist describes as "a great friend", and is hoping for a US presidential visit.
Self-touted as a "Trump before Trump", Orban has transformed the national life of Hungary, an EU member and home to 9.5 million people, during his 15-year rule.
In his drive to build what he has called an "illiberal state", he has been accused of silencing critical voices from the judiciary, academia, media and civil society, and of restricting minority rights. Trump's predecessor Joe Biden once accused him of "looking for dictatorship."
'Open-air museum'
"Hungary is like an open-air museum, whose leader appears to have proved it is possible to bring back the so-called good old days," Zsolt Enyedi, a senior democracy researcher at Vienna-based Central European University, told AFP.
"Illiberal ideas have been institutionalised," he added.
Both Trump and Orban target minorities, including the LGBTQ community.
"Orban realised there was not a strong public resistance to incitation against vulnerable groups... so he leveraged these to campaign," the researcher said.
"Similarly, Trump deports people without going through due process as American conventions would dictate," Enyedi added.
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