H.E. Viktor Orbán
His Excellency Viktor Orbán is the current Prime Minister of Hungary as well as the founder and leader of its ruling Fidesz party. The party was initially made up of anti-communist university students in the late 1980s. In 1989, Orbán gave a speech in Budapest’s Heroes’ Square to commemorate Imre Nagy and the leaders and victims of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising, during which he demanded the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary and free elections. In 1998, Orbán’s Fidesz party won more seats in parliament than any other party and ousted the Socialist party from control of the government, resulting in Orbán becoming the Prime Minister of Hungary at the age of 35. A former Warsaw Pact country, Orbán led Hungary to NATO membership in 1999. He received the Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom in 2002.
