Vance visit, explosives near Turk Stream not to have any significant impact on election chances

HUNGARY - In Brief 06 Apr 2026 by Istvan Racz

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President Trump not having the time in these days, it is Vice President Vance who is set to come to Budapest, to promote PM Orbán's election chances, for a two-day visit beginning tomorrow. No one knows what else could happen at his talks with the Hungarian government, but it is a widespread view among political analysts that Mr. Vance appearing in Hungary is likely to have little impact on the feelings of domestic voters. Indeed, the average people in the street, who were preoccupied most of all with encouraging their children or grandchildren to find the carefully hidden painted Easter eggs in the garden over the past two days, will hardly know who the hell he is. For sure, President Trump would be much more of a well-known person, but he is not available for the moment, probably to Mr. Orbán's sincere and deep sorrow. Perhaps the biggest impact on the life of Budapest inhabitants will be that half of the city will be closed down for a few hours to give free way to Mr. Vance's motorcade, but the resulting public annoyance will not matter much, as Mr. Orbán cannot really count on great election results in the capital city anyway.In any case, opposition leader Mr. Magyar has just made his voice heard on the subject, saying that somewhat suspiciously, they heard that a considerable amount of US-made military equipment is coming in to Hungary in these days, and he called upon the Vice President and Mr. Orbán not to enter into any agreement on this occasion that Hungary would send soldiers to help the US to solve the Middle East conflict. Frankly, we regard this only as Mr. Magyar wanting to impress his voters in this case, as what we heard so far has been that Mr. Trump ...