Lech Wałęsa says it's a big mistake that Péter Magyar hasn't put any politicians in prison yet

“I asked the prime minister how many people from the old regime he had put in prison so far. He said none, to which I responded that this was a big mistake,” Lech Wałęsa, the former President of Poland and Nobel Peace Prize laureate (which he received for his role in Poland’s transition to democracy) told reporters in Budapest. The former politician was in town for the Budapest Energy and Security Talks conference organized by Egyensúly Intézet (Equilibrium Institute).

During his time in Budapest, the former leader of Solidarity met with Prime Minister Péter Magyar for the second time; Magyar had previously visited Wałęsa in Gdańsk with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk during his May trip to Poland. We also asked him about their meeting in Budapest.

After the government led by the Law and Justice (PiS) party was ousted at the end of 2023 in Poland, they made the mistake of not imprisoning anyone, and the old regime slowly started to make a comeback—Wałęsa said, presumably referring to Karol Nawrocki’s victory in last year’s presidential election.

"Decisive action must be taken. The old system caused a great deal of harm to many Hungarians, so it must be made clear that they are held accountable for that.”

According to Wałęsa, who was Poland’s first president after the fall of communism, if the new Hungarian government does not act quickly and decisively, Hungarian society will turn away from it because people will conclude that democracy is not working. “We must prove that things can be achieved within a democracy; otherwise, people will not believe in it.”

“I told Péter Magyar that he’s working too slowly, because no one is in prison yet. And the former prime minister has now left for the United States—and he most likely won’t be coming back. This will make the new government look weak, as if it couldn’t do anything about Orbán.”

In response to a question from Telex, Bertalan Havasi, Fidesz’s communications director, said on Tuesday that after watching the World Cup final in New York on July 19, Viktor Orbán will attend the meeting of Fidesz's executive committee in Budapest on July 21, where the agenda will include selecting a new faction leader to replace Gergely Gulyás following his resignation.

The former President of Poland also received a question about the constitutional amendment removing President Tamás Sulyok from office. As he said, many people may not like it, but there is no other option but to remove a president linked to the old regime; otherwise, Hungary will end up like Poland: “If he isn’t removed, he’ll veto everything, and governing will become impossible. The same thing is happening in Poland, where the president (Karol Nawrocki, who, unlike the Hungarian head of state, has a genuine veto power—the author) is doing everything he can to make the government’s job more difficult. And this undermines democracy. We simply must intervene. But these are, of course, risky things.”

According to the leader of Solidarity, the situation is similar in the Czech Republic, where the president and the government are sending separate delegations everywhere, and these delegations are working against each other. That is precisely why, in his view, many people in Poland are now keeping an eye on what is happening in Hungary, to see if the Hungarian model might work in Poland too.

Lech Wałęsa also shared his thoughts on what needs to be done to strengthen democracy and make it functional across Central and Eastern Europe. In his view, there are three important changes that need to be made:

1. The length of time elected leaders can remain in power must be capped at two consecutive terms. In his opinion, the strict enforcement of such a rule could have prevented, for example, Vladimir Putin from doing what he did to Russia.
2. Recalling every elected politician from office must be possible at any time, but only if the petition for their recall is supported by more people than the number of votes they received in the election.
3. Campaign financing must be made transparent.

As he put it, democracy is currently being threatened by demagogues and populists, and another problem is that when we talk about democracy, we’re thinking of a concept that has become outdated—one that worked in Winston Churchill’s time but which clearly needs to be reinvented today. We must reimagine and save democracy.