Orbán’s Party Used Private COVID Data in Election Campaign

Human Rights Watch released a report December 1 condemning Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party for using Hungarians’ covid-19 data in an election campaign. Fidesz won its fourth consecutive election on April 3 in a highly uneven playing field for opponents. The report claims Fidesz collected data submitted to government websites to register for covid vaccines. The party then used that data to target people with campaign ads. Fidesz did the same for other government-collected data.

Blurred lines: On paper, Hungary is a liberal democracy. Yet power abuses like this suggest that party-government boundaries are fuzzy. More and more, Orbán appears to be getting as much control over government institutions as possible. And his primary aim is to protect his stay in power for as long as possible.

Watch Hungary: The latest allegations may represent a small abuse of power, but they are but one example of how European governments used the covid crisis to get more control over their people. Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry’s 2020 article “Coronavirus and the Holy Roman Empire” can help show why this is important—to Europe and to the world.