Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, on the offensive ahead of the spring 2026 parliamentary elections, vowed on Saturday to wipe out his political rivals, judges, the media and NGOs - "bedbugs" he claimed were fed by "corrupt" foreign funding.
"After our big rally will come the big Easter clean-up, because the bedbugs have survived the winter," he told a crowd of several thousand supporters gathered in Budapest to mark the national Revolutionary Day.
The nationalist leader wants to "dismantle the financial machine which, thanks to corrupt dollars, has bought politicians, judges, journalists and fake civil organisations."
"We will liquidate this army of shadows, protégés of Brussels working against their homeland,” he added, even though most of the media had been barred from attending the event.
In the wake of the freezing of US humanitarian aid, Orban announced last month his intention to "wipe off the map" the international networks active in the central European country.
In particular, the government plans to amend the constitution so that it can temporarily strip dual nationals of their nationality if they pose a threat to national security. One possible target is the 94-year-old billionaire philanthropist George Soros, born in Budapest and a naturalised American, who is the bête noire of the Hungarian government.
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At the head of Hungary since 2010, Orban has gradually brought the checks and balances to heel, while being claimed to be exercising an "illiberal democracy".
And since the victory of his ally Donald Trump in the United States, he has hardened his rhetoric, convinced that "the future belongs to patriots and independent nations", and not to the Brussels "empire".
As for the others, "hell" awaits them, he warned.
His conservative rival Peter Magyar also organised a rally in the capital for the national holiday, vastly outnumbering Orban's crowd according to the first sources. The outspoken critic of the government is leading in several opinion polls, posing an unprecedented challenge to Viktor Orban.
