POWER HUNGARY

摘要

The soccer match hasn't drawn much of a crowd. It's being played in tiny Felcsut, Hungary (pop. 1,800), and the teams on the field are ranked 3rd and 10th out of the 16 squads vying for the national championship. Except for a small section where fans of the visiting team are clustered, only a sprinkling of the 3,500 seats are occupied. This isn't the kind of contest where you'd expect a prominent politician to show up-unless that politician is Viktor Orban, 51, the Hungarian prime minister. Having just returned from a trip to South Korea, Orban's made the 45-minute drive from Budapest to Felcsut. He's wearing a black coat and long gray scarf, and when the game begins he's standing by himself just outside the glass walls of the VIP booth, in line with the center of the field. When the home team, loth-place Puskas Academy, threatens the opponent's goal, he puts both hands over his mouth. When the ball goes wide, he turns and slaps a concrete pillar. Just before halftime, a Puskas attacker rifles the ball into the back of the net. Orban raises both arms in triumph.