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GWYNNE DYER: Why the 'angry toad' Orbán will likely finally lose a Hungarian election

Populist leader Viktor Orbán has won four consecutive elections in Hungary but is now poised to lose the April 12 vote

Viktor Orbán has not aged well.

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When I met him in Budapest two months before the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, he was a typical hyper-ambitious student leader. Anybody who has been to university knows the type: fluent, ruthless, perpetually on the look-out for the main chance, and oddly old still to be a student (he was 26).

Orbán had just gained a national profile in Hungary with a bold speech demanding free elections and the withdrawal of Soviet troops. Hungarian-American George Soros, probably still just a multi-millionaire at that point but definitely the richest Hungarian, brought him over and introduced us (I had just interviewed Soros).

Soros was on a mission to bring liberal democracy to Hungary, and he had recently spotted Orbán and made him his protégé. Indeed, he was sending Orbán off to Pembroke College at Oxford to get a quick master’s degree and become more conversant with liberal ideas.

Why Orbán switched sides

We talked for a while, and it was clear that Orbán had decided Soros was the main chance he had been looking........

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