Do 99 percent of Hungarians refuse the creation of "migrant ghettos" in Hungary and oppose weapon shipments to Ukraine? No, that's not true: The data source is a recent national consultation, which was only answered by 1.5 million out of 8.2 million Hungarian voters.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) on TikTok on January 25, 2024, under the title (translated from Hungarian to English by Lead Stories staff) "The opinion of the Hungarians is clear!" The creator wrote (as translated):
99% of Hungarian people do not agree with the creation of migrant ghettos in Hungary, nor with Brussels giving more weapons to Ukraine. According to 99.3% of Hungarians, instead of arms shipments, peace and a ceasefire are needed in Ukraine.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Mon Jan 29 16:17:43 2024 UTC)
The creator talks about the National Consultation (archived here), a campaign questionnaire sent by the government to every Hungarian voter to ask their opinion on political topics. The Consultation is not a referendum, has no legal consequence and the questions are generally leading. Here are two examples:
4. Brussels wants to create migrant ghettos in Hungary too.
Instead of us deciding for ourselves, Brussels wants to determine who we live with and who we allow into our country. They want to oblige us to let migrants into the country before their asylum applications have even been fully processed. This would create migrant ghettos in Hungary too.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
We must not allow migrant ghettos to be created in our country.
Brussels' migration plans must be accepted. ...
6. Brussels would send more weapons to Ukraine.
From the outset, Brussels has taken a pro-war stance and has called for arms supplies. Accordingly, it has already spent more than €5 billion on developing the Ukrainian army. Its latest proposal is to provide a further €20 billion to arm Ukraine.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
What is needed is a ceasefire and peace, not arms supplies.
More weapons bought with EU money must be sent to the battlefields.
One and one-half million citizens (archived here) returned the Consultation on national sovereignty in 2023-24. As Hungary has 8.2 million voters (archived here), the results do not mirror the opinion of "Hungarians," as the video claims. Only 18.3 percent of Hungarian voters expressed their opinion through the government's leaflets.
According to the critics of the current government, the Consultation is a campaign tool funded by the state. Peter Kreko, director of Political Capital, a Budapest-based think tank, tweeted (archived here), "Orbán's government is running a very harsh, targeted, state-sponsored disinformation campaign against the EU." The government was running an online and billboard campaign (archived here) to urge citizens to participate in the Consultation. The billboards and the videos show Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, and Alex Soros, the chairman of Open Society Foundations, with the title "Let's not dance to their tune!"
Eric Mamer, a senior spokesman for the European Commission, told journalists during a press briefing (archived here) that the claims in the Consultation "are completely untrue." Vera Jourova, vice-president of the European Commission, stated (archived here) at a press conference on December 12, 2023, that the questionnaire contains lies and the campaign is trying to mislead Hungarian citizens.
