THE HAND OF THE RIGHT-WAY WALKED THROUGH BUDAPEST

SPECIAL REPORT

Political passions are boiling in Hungary for more than a day. It all started after the press got an audio recording of the speech of the Prime Minister of the country at a closed meeting with deputies of the ruling socialist party, where the politician literally said ...

Political passions are boiling in Hungary for more than a day. It all started after the press got an audio recording of the speech of the country's prime minister at a closed meeting with deputies of the ruling socialist party, where the politician said literally the following: "We have been deceiving the people in recent years." The right-wing opposition immediately demanded the prime minister's resignation. He, in turn, said that he was misunderstood, and refused to leave his post.

The main center of protest activity was the square near the Hungarian Parliament. But if until Monday the protests were peaceful, then on Tuesday night they took on a much more radical character. The riots began late in the night, when groups of radical right-wing activists, mostly football fans, pulled into the center. The Ultras began throwing stones and bottles at the building, set fire to several parked cars and attacked the police cordon. The police fired tear gas, but this only further angered the crowd. And the protesters practically swept away the ranks of law enforcement officers.

In fact, the rioters controlled the city center all night, since the police were clearly not ready for such a development of events. By Tuesday morning, the passions subsided, but television and newspapers are still actively discussing the events of last night.

The police are at a loss and, apparently, are preparing for new clashes with opposition activists. After all, it was the police who were mostly the victims of night riots. After the cordon was removed, the activists were happy to demonstrate the batons and helmets taken from law enforcement officers.

There are victims on both sides: there are also wounded among the oppositionists. True, they often inflicted injuries on themselves - the stones and bottles that they threw often did not reach the target - the policemen and the windows of parliament - but fell on the heads of other protesters.

During the day, people of all ages took to the streets: both the elderly and middle-aged. They behaved quite peacefully, stood with national flags. The youth turned up in the evening. Many of them really look like football fans. I spoke with several of them. They didn’t really like that I was from Russia, but they didn’t refuse to talk.

They said that they belong to one of the far-right fan groups. With them they had the national Hungarian flag with symbols unknown to me. They also said that they did not like the Prime Minister and that they thought he was Jewish. There were quite a lot of far-right on the square, but this does not mean at all that all the protesters belong to the Nazi-minded oppositionists. Completely different people took to the streets, a wave of indignation rose quite large.

When I was driving from the city center, the taxi driver happily told me that they would arrange an orange revolution, like in Ukraine. I protested that the Orange Revolution could not be about throwing stones at police officers and setting cars on fire. He eventually agreed, adding, however, that it was high time to "teach the red government a lesson." The mood is different, but there is no panic, people just try to stay away from the city center, because the riots are taking place in a fairly small area. In addition, there is an election campaign in Budapest now. On October 1, elections of local authorities are to be held here - elections of the mayor and the local parliament. This, too, was the reason for such a heat of passion. The whole city is hung with campaign materials, billboards, and the degree of political activity of people has exceeded the critical mark.

I myself often attended various political actions and protests. And if I didn't know what was going on, I would think that the riots are organized by anti-globalists. Nevertheless, all this is organized by the right-wing opposition. A fairly new phenomenon, because in recent years, radical youth, oriented towards clashes with the police, in Europe have been predominantly leftist. The fact that right-wing and far-right youth are speaking out in Hungary will still be discussed, and we have yet to figure out what is happening in Budapest right now.