Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban belatedly launched his Twitter account earlier this week, provoking amusement over his narrow choice of personalities to follow and provoking superb trolling by the new US ambassador to Budapest.

Orban had tweeted: "After my first day on Twitter, there’s one question on my mind. Where is my good friend, realDonaldTrump?" He accompanied his post with a gif of John Travolta’s character Vincent Vega in the film Pulp Fiction looking bemused. 

One of the first responses came from US Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman, who has recently taken up his post in Budapest. Pressman wrote: "While you look around for your friend, perhaps another friend to follow: the President of the United States, @POTUS … but as the Hungarian media might say: no pressure. #nyomasgyakorlo.

 

Welcome to Twitter, @PM_ViktorOrban! While you look around for your friend, perhaps another friend to follow: the President of the United States, @POTUS… but as the Hungarian media might say: no pressure. #nyomasgyakorlo https://t.co/HtvHSFtMm0 pic.twitter.com/a4Uxz3xDMR

— Ambassador David Pressman (@USAmbHungary)

Welcome to Twitter, @PM_ViktorOrban! While you look around for your friend, perhaps another friend to follow: the President of the United States, @POTUS… but as the Hungarian media might say: no pressure. #nyomasgyakorlo https://t.co/HtvHSFtMm0 pic.twitter.com/a4Uxz3xDMR

— Ambassador David Pressman (@USAmbHungary) October 11, 2022

11, 2022

 

The US diplomat used the hashtag nyomasgyakorlo (a person, who puts pressure on someone) after a columnist of pro-government daily Magyar Nemzet last week criticised Pressman for urging the government to ratify the accession of Sweden and Finland to Nato.

Orban’s list of followed leaders include many of his illiberal peers, like Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Geert Wilders, the Dutch far-right politician, Brazilian President Jair M. Bolsonaro, French radical rightwing leader Marine LePen, and also his new allies in the region, Milorad Dodik, Serbian member of the three-member Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic and right-wing politicians of the new Italian government, Giorgia Meloni and Matteo Salvini.

The list of reigning mainstream European politicians is much shorter as he follows the leaders of the Visegrad Group, Dutch PM Mark Rutte and Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer and Olaf Scholz, German Chancellor. There is only one EU politician on his list, former Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, President of the European Council. 

The Hungarian prime minister follows a string of conservative philosophers and writers, like Jordan B. Peterson, Israeli nationalist philosopher Yoram Hazony and Rod Dreher, editor of the American Conservative, who lives in Budapest funded by the Danube Institute. Pope Francis was also on his list.

As of Thursday morning, he followed 44 persons and had more than 65,400 followers.

Orban launched his Twitter account with the goal of providing information to the international public and share his views for the future, according to his spokesperson.

The prime minister’s biography on the social media site describes him as "Freedom fighter, Husband, Father, Grandfather, Prime Minister of Hungary".