In anticipation of the OSCE ODIHR mission’s criticism of the Hungarian parliamentary elections, the Hungarian authorities decided that they needed to counterbalance the expected OSCE’s criticism with positive assessments of the elections. To this end, and for the first time in the history of any EU Member State, Orbán’s government invited dozens of friendly politicians, journalists, and civil society activists whose aim was to endorse the elections. These friendly observers – among them members of the European Parliament and of the PACE of the Council of Europe - praised the conduct of the parliamentary elections.