Hungary’s incoming prime minister has vowed to shut down state media news channels when he takes power, describing it as a “factory of lies” in an extraordinary series of interviews after his landslide election win.
In its place, prime minister-elect Peter Magyar said, the incoming Tisza party will build a “real, independent public broadcaster – one where the opposition finally has a voice too”.
Mr Magyar won a critical election against nationalist prime minister Viktor Orban on Sunday, ending a 16-year tenure that saw his government take strict control over state media channels as part of his so-called “illiberal democracy”.
In a series of tense interviews on the pro-Orban channels, on which he was not platformed during the election campaign, Mr Magyar lashed out at what he described as a “propaganda machine”, accusing them of spreading lies and comparing the coverage to that of North Korea and Nazi Germany.
“Every Hungarian deserves a public service media that broadcasts the truth,” the leader-elect told Kossuth state radio, stating his government would pass a new legislation and create a new media regulator which would allow state media to “actually do what it is meant to do”.
In an interview on TV channel M1, Mr Magyar said, according to a translation shared by the political scientist Branislav Slantchev: “Before we get started, let me just point out how strange this is. The last time I was invited on public media was more than a year and a half ago.
“It took an unprecedented mandate from over 3.3 million Hungarians for the leader of the strongest party to finally be allowed back on air.”
He continued: “We will immediately suspend this lying news service.
“After we form the government, one of our very first tasks will be to shut down this factory of lies and build a real, independent public broadcaster – one where the opposition finally has a voice too.”
These mark only the latest of Mr Magyar’s attacks on the existing status quo in Hungary. On Wednesday, the new prime minister ramped up pressure on the country’s president to resign, just moments after he was asked to form a government.
Mr Magyar shared a picture of himself alongside president Dr Tamas Sulyok, hands crossed as they stood in front of the flags of Hungary and the European Union.
He tagged the president, an ally of his predecessor Viktor Orbán, in the post, saying he was “unworthy of representing the unity of the Hungarian nation”, “unfit to serve as the guardian of legality”, and “not fit to serve as a moral authority or a role model”.
