Jan Mainka is editor of the German-language weekly Budapester Zeitung. EIR reached him by phone to get an assessment of the political situation in Hungary on the eve of the April 12 national elections. From our discussion, a quite different picture emerged than the one proffered by Western mainstream media. Mainka’s newspaper is independent, but, as you will see from the interview, he is not “neutral.”
Our interlocutor confirmed what other sources had told EIR, concerning the biased methodology used in reporting opinion polls, according to which the opposition candidate has a significant advantage against incumbent Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
According to Mainka, a 55% result for Orbán is a credible forecast. This is based on internal Fidesz party polls, as well as election rally turnouts. For instance, on March 15, one of Hungary’s three national holidays, there were two rallies in Budapest: one by opposition leader Magyar and one by Orbán. While some 150,000 people joined the Magyar rally, Orbán’s rally had the participation of 180,000 people, despite the fact that Budapest and other large cities are Magyar’s main voter reserve. Magyar can count on left-liberal voters coming from university and other layers, for instance. Such figures have been produced from data, such as the number of cellphones that connected to the cell tower. Other interesting data, Mainka pointed out, are the number of followers on Facebook and other social media, where Orbán’s Fidesz party has a clear advantage. Last but not least, internal polls that cannot be published are not so bad. Read the full interview.