With only a month or so to go before national elections in Hungary, Fidesz, the political party of the country’s populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, is using the war in Ukraine as electoral public relations.

In an email sent earlier this week to large swathes of the population, the Hungarian government promised to guarantee the security of its citizens during the war, stating that the authorities’ fundamental interest is to keep Hungary out of war.

The government condemns as “irresponsible” the position of the Hungarian opposition, which, the message claims, wants to send troops and weapons to Ukraine. None of the political parties in opposition in Hungary has ever said that Hungary should send troops to Ukraine.

The message was sent from the government’s information office, which is in charge of communicating information about state policies to the Hungarian citizens.

The message was sent to millions of email addresses that the government collected a year or so ago when it invited people in Hungary to send their personal data to be registered for vaccination.

All those email addresses were then saved in a database that the government is now using for propaganda messaging. Hence, numerous foreigners residing in Hungary, who do not vote in elections, also received these emails.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

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