Prime Minister Viktor Orban cancelled plans to tax internet usage in Hungary on Friday after mass protests across the country.
The protests began in Budapest on Sunday as tens of thousands of Hungarians flooded the streets of the capital.
The proposed measure would have taxed internet usage at a rate 150 Hungarian forint, or about 60 cents, per gigabyte of data. After this week’s initial protests, Orban announced a monthly tax cap of 700 forint, or about $3.00, per internet subscription for individuals and 5,000 forint, or about $20.00, for companies.
This concession failed to appease the crowds, leading to Friday’s announcement.
World Views panelist and University of Oklahoma College of International Studies assistant dean Rebecca Cruise says that protesters saw the measure as a step toward totalitarian control.
“The folks that are leading the protest are saying that the government and the Prime Minister are actually trying to impose a new Iron Curtain on information in Hungary,” Cruise says. “Obviously, coming after the Cold War that resonates.”
Prime Minster Orban, who was reelected to a second four-year-term earlier this year, has been a criticized for leading Hungary back toward autocratic and authoritarian rule.
“This past summer he came out and said that Hungary was in favor of illiberal democracies and that he was looking to China and Russia and other areas as places that Hungary would want to emulate,” Cruise says. “He kind of backtracked on that a little bit, but Hungary seems to be going further and further to the right.”
Orban’s conservative Fidesz Party currently has a two-thirds majority in Parliament. As Fidesz consolidated power, the left splintered Cruise says, leaving Orban unopposed.
However, this week’s protests might prove to be a launching point for the opposition.
“This is an opportunity for those who are opposing him to get behind an issue that is uniting them,” Cruise says.
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