György Raskó, a close ally of Hungarian opposition leader Péter Magyar, has posted a bizarre, inflammatory message to his Facebook page. It was first reported on by the website for the Hungarian news daily Magyar Nemzet.
In it, he suggests that Europe needs ‘another war to awaken us’. He even wrote ‘A couple hundred thousand people die, there is a major drop in the standard of living, but there would be an awakening again’.
What prompted this odd man to publish such a deranged message?
Well, he shared it alongside a link to an article about President Alexander Van der Bellen of Austria tasking the leader of the right-wing populist Freedom Party (FPÖ) Herbert Kickl with forming a government. Media reports also suggest that the centre-right ÖVP is open to being the minority party in the coalition, so there is a high chance for the new government to be formed.
Raskó thus argues that Austria ‘deserves it, they have been drowning in prosperity so far…They will learn where the Almighty lives now.’ By this (slightly distorted) Hungarian idiomatic expression the author presumably meant that he expects a major drop in Austria’s economy under the new, populist leadership.
While Raskó is an economist on paper, he does not elaborate, or even hint at an explanation of what he believes the correlation between a country’s economic performance and the political ideology of the local leadership is.
Right-Wing Ideology Detrimental for the Economy?
In Germany, a country he mentions in his few sentences, right-wing parties rose sharply in popularity precisely because of the economic downturn under the left-wing leadership of Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Some of the hardship was directly caused by his administration’s energy policy and policy towards the Russo-Ukrainian war. Meanwhile in Argentina, the election of populist President Javier Milei has led to a great and sudden economic recovery.
Evidently, this does not mean that electing right-wing politicians is necessarily good for the national economy; nor that electing left-wing politicians is necessarily harmful to the national economy, but it does mean Raskó’s proposition of Austrians having to suffer financially for the election of a right-wing populist Chancellor is simple-minded and ridiculous.
The other thesis of his brief argument is even more perplexing.
It seems that Raskó thinks that a major war in Europe would do away with right-wing populism, which is what he most likely meant by ‘awakening’. Setting aside the obvious moral issue that the author thinks it would be worth making such a sacrifice, it is also unclear what makes this man, who does not appear to be particularly intelligent, believe that a major war in Europe would have that effect. In fact, if right-wing populist forces were to win that hypothetical war, it would have the exact opposite effect.
Hungarian Opposition: Pro-War After All
Ahead of the 2024 European parliamentary election, the ruling right-wing Fidesz party’s primary campaign message was accusing the opposition Tisza Party of being ‘pro-war’. Party leader Péter Magyar vehemently denied those claims. However, now we have one of Magyar’s close allies blatantly and flippantly arguing for war in Europe.
Magyar has tried to distance himself from Raskó already, after a similarly inflammatory statement by him arguing that old-age pensioners dying is good for electoral prospects of the Tisza Party. However, in October 2024, Raskó himself spoke on the local radio station Klubrádió how Magyar tasked him with finding MP nominees for his party for the 2026 parliamentary elections.
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