'Plan A' Sours for Hungary's Nationalist Leader After Trump Defeat

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban congratulated President-elect Joe Biden on his election after previously stating how he was convinced that his ally President Donald Trump would win and has no alternative plans for if he didn't.

Orban, an anti-immigration leader in Europe who previously criticized Barack Obama's administration where Biden served as Vice-President, wished the Democrat well in a letter cited by state news agency MTI.

"Let me congratulate you for a successful presidential campaign. I wish you good health and continued success in performing your exceedingly responsible duties," Orban wrote.

Orban, who has been in power in Hungary since 2010, previously told Reuters in September that he cannot see anything but a Trump victory and that he may be less co-operative with Biden if he is victorious.

"The only reason why I'm sitting here after spending more than 30 years in politics is that I always believe in my plan A," he said. "We have an exceptionally good relationship with Trump. Probably the level of openness and kindness and helping each other will be lower [If Biden wins]. But my calculation is OK. He [Trump] will win."

Orban was the first European Union leader to back Trump in 2016 and visited Trump in the White House in 2019. He has also accused Democrats of "moral imperialism."

Elsewhere, Janez Jansa, prime minister of Slovenia, where first lady Melania Trump was born, had refused to accept the result of the election and declared that the mainstream media has announced the results and "the courts have not even begun to decide."

Jansa, another nationalist conservative, also praised Trump following the president's premature 2 a.m. election victory speech while millions of votes were still outstanding.

"It's pretty clear that American people have elected ⁦@realDonaldTrump⁩ ⁦@Mike_Pence⁩ for #4moreyears," he wrote. "More delays and facts denying from #MSM."

In an apparent acceptance of Biden's victory, Jansa added on Sunday that the U.S. is a "strategic partner" to Slovenia and he has built "close, friendly relations" with the country "no matter which party the U.S. president was from."

"Nothing will change in the future," he wrote.

Poland's President Andrzej Duda, another one of Trump's close allies during his time in Washington, congratulated Biden for running "a successful presidential campaign."

He added: "As we await the nomination by the Electoral College, Poland is determined to upkeep high-level and high-quality PL-US strategic partnership for an even stronger alliance."