Hungarians protest as Orban’s austerity measures bite

Bloomberg

Hungarians are holding daily protests as a plunging currency and the threat of a Russian cut-off of natural gas shipments to Europe forces Prime Minister Viktor Orban to embrace unpopular austerity measures.
A few thousand demonstrators rallied by the Danube river in Budapest on Saturday evening, according to local media reports. Protesters then blocked a bridge for a fifth consecutive day since the cabinet unveiled tax hikes for hundreds of thousands of Hungarians.
Orban’s administration also announced this week $1.4 billion in spending cuts and funding freezes as well as a cap on decade-old subsidies that have kept household utility bills at a fraction of current market prices. Starting next month, millions may face a steep rise in the cost of gas and electricity that exceeds average consumption.
The measures rank among the biggest policy shifts by Orban since he launched a campaign to consolidate power and win popularity via generous social handouts and a state-backed propaganda juggernaut when he returned to office in 2010. They’re also jarring for Hungarians after Orban’s lavish pre-election spending and a pledge to leave the utility subsidy system untouched helped him to a fifth term in the April ballot.
“This will be the first real stress test of Orban’s system,” said Peter Kreko, director of the Political Capital research institute in Budapest. “This shows that economic populism eventually hits its limit.”