George Soros confronts his populist enemies

He is attacked as a black monk of liberalism, but far from discouraged, the Hungarian billionaire multiplies the efforts of his foundation to support democracies in Eastern Europe

The only thing that brings fame are problems, he warned his father George Soros. By hiding the Jewish identity of his family, Tivadar Soros helped them to be saved from the deportation of Hungary to the Nazi extermination camps. The young Soros, who is now 87 years old, adopted a different approach, accepting a high public profile as a multimillionaire investor and later as a liberal philanthropist. But it had its cost.
Last year, Soros and the Open Society Foundations (OSF) he founded were the target of an increasingly intense and sometimes orchestrated defamation campaign by opponents of the liberal agenda he promotes.
Among the innumerable conspiracy theories disseminated by right-wing critics, Soros was accused of organizing chemical weapons attacks against Syrian children, overthrowing the Macedonian government through psychological warfare and plotting the migration of millions of Muslim immigrants to Europe.
But some of the attacks were more serious. In Hungary, Soros was the subject of a multi-billion dollar publicity campaign financed by the State. In December, a member of the governing party parliament, Fidesz, posted a photo on Facebook of the burned corpse of a pig with the phrase "This was Soros" engraved on the skin. In December he admitted that Central European University, the elite research university he established in 1991, may be forced to leave Budapest following new laws that critics consider an attack on academic freedom.
Meanwhile, in Romania, the leader of the ruling party warned Soros's intervention in anti-corruption demonstrations, saying he had "financed the devil."
The attacks against Soros are one of the most striking manifestations of the changing political arenas, especially in Central and Eastern Europe. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the foundations of Soros embodied optimism regarding the expansion of Western-style democracy in the former Soviet bloc. However, the same bases have become a lightning rod for the nationalist and sometimes authoritarian voices that exert a much greater influence in the whole region amid the withering of the liberal appeal.

"This is again a déjà vu with a big change: the dominant ideology in the world today is nationalism,"

Soros said in an interview with the Financial Times at his home in New York State.

"The EU is the institution that is on the verge of collapse, and Russia is now the power that resurfaces again, founded on nationalism."

According to the historian Anne Applebaum, a Jewish billionaire is a convenient enemy for leaders like the Hungarian Viktor Orban: "They do not want to be openly anti-American or anti-European, so they have identified Soros as a cuckoo that represents aspects of the West that they do not like. ", he says, adding that critics play with anti-Semitic metaphors. "It's a clear tactic because it avoids criticism of the EU and the United States, and it's a simpler and older message style."

Within the OSF there was an anguished debate on whether responding to the campaign would only encourage more initiatives to demonize Soros. Some wondered if publicizing the foundation would provoke even more attacks against the groups that Soros supports.

But Soros insists that he will defend himself. Originally he had planned to close the OSF before his death. Instead, it is redoubling its project to encourage the growth of democracies in places where governments foster pluralism and accountability.

In November, he confirmed that he had donated another $ 18 billion the bulk of his personal fortune to OSF, which he leads as president of the world board, making it one of the largest charitable foundations in history. Your total transfers today amount to US $ 32,000 million.

"I think you can say that I am quite fortunate with my enemies," he says cheerfully of the attacks. "It makes me feel more than ready to fight and defend what is right."

It could be argued that the OSF is a new type of international actor, with a scale of resources more commonly associated with international relief organizations, such as the Red Cross, but uncritically deployed in the service of a liberal worldview.

It spent almost US $ 14,000 million in the last 35 years, mostly in education and health programs. In the 1990s, OSF helped reconnect water and electricity supplies for the besieged Bosnian capital of Sarajevo and awarded grants to Russian scientists in difficulty. Today he advocates for health and economic opportunities for marginal groups, including the Roma community of 10 million people in Europe, disabled and drug addicts.

It actively works in 140 countries, it also supports groups that encourage governments, pro-democracy initiatives that other donors shy away from. Soros, through his personal donations, is also one of the biggest sponsors of the United States Democratic Party.

That worldview has always made him a polemic figure for the right, but in recent years his activities have generated accusations that he denies that helped to overthrow the governments of Georgia, Ukraine and, more recently, Macedonia.

Attacks on the OSF foundation

The foundation was expelled from Russia and Uzbekistan and Soros claims that those who received grants also face threats in Hungary, a member of the EU, where Orban ordered intelligence agencies to investigate a "Soros empire" that, according to him, threatens national interests.

Almost 20 semiautonomous boards of directors decide how OSF money is spent and beneficiaries report donations publicly. But critics say that Soros directs all movements, which makes her a liberal superpower that is not accountable. Breitbart News, the ultra-right website, calls it the "Death Star".

Zoltan Kovács, a spokesman for the Hungarian government, argues that the debate on OSF stems from "two conflicting views of democracy." While Soros believes that civil society should act as a check on the executive branch, Kovács argues that only elected representatives can legitimately "do politics."

"Soros was never elected by anyone, the organizations (NGOs, human rights groups, etc.) were never chosen by anyone," he told the FT. "They are clearly participating in defining how political decisions should be made, and that's wrong."

An OSF official responds that populist politicians believe they are "owners" of politics: "If you support local people who express opposing views, they see it as an interference in their territory."

Soros considers that Russia is the origin of the attacks against him. And it is personal. "Putin does not like it," he says, describing a grudge he believes was fueled by his criticism of the Russian leader and his initial support for former Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, who took office after the 2003 Rose Revolution.

Russia urged neighboring authoritarian leaders to avoid the domino effect of the revolutions by taking action against civil society and pressuring OSF, according to Alisher Ilkhamov, who headed the OSF office in Uzbekistan before being forced to close it in 2004. In 2015 the Russian authorities followed suit and the OSF was forced to leave Moscow, after the authorities restricted their financing activities, invoking security risks.

In May 2017, the Macedonian recipients of OSF grants dropped the world when government supporters blamed them for the collapse of the right-wing government led by the VMRO party, which had been accused by an EU report of the "massive violation of fundamental rights", including illegal wiretapping and judicial interference.

Cvetin Chilimanov, founder of the Stop Operation Soros organization launched by supporters of the overthrown Macedonian government, says that the OSF, with the help of Western diplomats, helped to plan his disappearance, using false wiretapping recordings and civil society henchmen.

"I do not advocate limiting the right of unreliable billionaires to finance media or activist groups to boost their political tastes, but I reserve the right to point out these connections and criticize them."

I think you can say that I am quite lucky with my enemies. It makes me feel more than ready to fight and defend what is right.

OSF officials refuse to describe the attacks as part of a coordinated plan. However, the leaders of Hungary, Romania and Macedonia maintain close ties. They even presented the case to US Senator Mike Lee, one of six US Republican senators who in 2017 requested an investigation into US Department of State grants to OSF projects. He filed the complaint after meeting with delegations from the three countries separately, confirmed an FT spokesman.

The ties also extend to Israel. Eli Hazan, director of foreign affairs for the ruling Likud party, says he gave Orban information about Soros' Israeli concessions weeks before the Hungarian prime minister revealed his campaign against Soros. Later, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, publicly endorsed Orban's criticism before making a three-day visit to Budapest. Likud members proposed stricter rules on funding by groups such as OSF and accuse Soros of protecting terrorists by supporting Palestinian NGOs.

Fighting Soros' activities is "a pleasure," Hazan told the FT. According to Hazan, since Soros can not win in national elections, he chooses to promote his ideas by other means.

"If I can help other organizations or governments to work against Soros, I will do it with pleasure because it is a struggle of ideas that can shape the future worldwide," he says.

Soros admits that he has made mistakes. Saakashvili, the former Georgian leader he supported, "ended up being much less an example of the values of the open society than he was in the opposition," he wrote in 2011. Soros's relationship with Saaskashvili who was exiled to Ukraine, where he He became governor of Odessa, but is currently the object of a criminal investigation, he taught him a "painful lesson" to "maintain greater distance from the internal politics of the countries where I have foundations".

That is easier in theory than in practice, he admits. Its beneficiaries were involved in the 2014 revolution in Maidan, Ukraine, although it insists that the OSF did not play a direct role. "We do not participate in the real fight, that goes against our guidelines and principles, but we supported those who fought and that was also during Maidan."

Patrick Gaspard, the new president of OSF, argues that the organization has procedures to allocate funds that are independent of Soros. The political errors were extremely extraordinary, he adds: "Every effort was made to avoid the granting of subsidies from partisan political campaigns," he says.

But mistakes are inevitable, especially with group financing activities in 140 countries. "You have to feel comfortable with that [the risks], but also learn from the mistakes that are made," he says.

OSF officials recognize that the name of Soros and the foundation are indissoluble in the collective imagination. This is consistent with what the critics say, which describe the OSF as a mere tool of its founder, despite its decentralized structure.

"Most foundations and donors want to stay in the background and let the work of the groups they finance speak for themselves," says an activist who receives support from the OSF. "But that's more difficult when you have a founder who makes noise and who is the target of a vile defamation campaign."

Instead of taking a defensive stance, Soros says he will remain president of the global board for another five years, or maybe longer, as long as his health allows it. But the OSF will last longer than him. The appointment of Gaspard provides indications about future plans. As former political director of Obama's White House, [Gaspard] brings a sharper political education than his predecessor Christopher Stone, a former Harvard academic.

According to Gaspard's list of priorities, the OSF will not avoid political controversies: corruption, the challenges posed by mass migration, the abusive use of technology by autocrats and guarantee voting rights "from Cleveland to Kinshasa".