Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Photo source: Attila Kisbenedek / AFP / Profimedia
Fidesz, the Hungarian ruling party, is determined to modify the Constitution in Parliament, the LGBT community being targeted and what the Government calls “Political Pressure Networks from abroad” which undermines the country's sovereignty, informs Reuters.
The nationalist prime minister Viktor Orban, who has been in power since 2010, will be presented in elections in 2026 with an economy in difficulty and with a new opposition party that seems the most powerful rival that has had Fidesz so far. The constitutional amendments are part of Orban's campaign to encourage his base of voters and to attract votes from the extreme, some analysts say.
The amendments to the Constitution, which have high chances of being adopted on Monday due to the majority of the two -thirds of Fidesz and the probable support of the far -right deputies, provide for the protection of the physical and moral development of children above the other rights.
Orban has promised to suppress the foreign financing of the independent press and non-governmental organizations in Hungary, at the same time with the intensification of the political campaign against the LGBT communities.
“Most of the majority consider this change as a constitutional guarantee against the ideological influences that would threaten the good of children, especially in the context of events such as parades,” wrote X Zoltan Kovacs, a spokesman of the Budapest government.
It will also be stipulated in the Constitution that Hungary recognizes only two sexes, male and feminine, according to Orban's Christian-conservative agenda.
The amendments strengthen the law adopted on March 18 by which the annual Pride march is forbidden, practically restricting freedom of meeting and causing protests against changes quickly promoted by Orban's Fidesz. The party claims that the event could be harmful to the children, here they are above the right to meet.
The LGBT community has been a target of the ruling party for several years, the Pride organizers say on a petition on their website. They state that if the Government suppresses an assembly for LGBT rights, there is no guarantee that the peaceful protests of other groups will not be forbidden.
Another amendment stipulates that the citizenship of the Hungarians who are also citizens of other states outside the EU “can be suspended on a limited term”.
“This change is part of a wider effort to counteract the political pressure networks from abroad that undermine the Hungarian democracy and sovereignty,” said Zoltan Kovacs.
