After years of demonising billionaire investor George Soros as a sinister liberal bogeyman, the Hungarian government and its allied media are taking aim at a fresh target — his son Alexander.
Monday’s announcement that the elder Soros will hand over control of his philanthropic empire to 37-year-old Alexander, who goes by the name of Alex, prompted an object lesson in the workings of media loyal to nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
The 92-year-old Soros has become a bete noire of the international far right because of the activities of his Open Society Foundations (OSF).
In Hungary, the government accuses him of wanting to “flood Europe” with migrants because of the OSF’s support for refugee rights advocates.
Critics of the Hungarian government say it has used anti-Semitic tropes in its virulent attacks on Soros, who is Jewish, depicting him as a shadowy and manipulative figure. The government denies these claims.
“The government has made George Soros a kind of axiomatic enemy” blamed for everything from high inflation to Hungary’s isolation in foreign policy, according to Peter Kreko, executive director of the Political Capital think tank, which lists the OSF among its donors and partners.