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KN-HUNGARY, Hungary’s parliamentary elections over the weekend witnessed a record turnout as voters ousted strongman Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party from a 16-year grip on power. Orbán’s challenger, Peter Magyar — who until two years ago was a Fidesz loyalist — and his Tisza party emerged victorious, securing a more than two-thirds majority. This landslide win could allow Magyar to reverse many of the changes Orbán has made to Hungary’s constitution throughout his tenure. Widely regarded as an illiberal democracy throughout Orbán’s rule, Magyar’s victory is seen by the people of Hungary as a renewed source of hope for the future. Some analysts drew comparisons to Janez Janša, a Slovenian populist cut in Orbán’s mold, who lost the 2022 elections.
Since returning to power in 2010, following a four-year stretch as prime minister from 1998-2002, Orbán and his Fidesz party have shaped Hungary as the most autocratic government in the European Union (EU), championing its populist policies. In 2011, parliament passed a new constitution — thanks to the Fidesz party’s supermajority — changing hundreds of laws. Some of its most sweeping reforms occurred in the courts, including increasing the number of justices on its constitutional court from 11 to 15, appointing four new judges, and lowering the mandatory retirement age for judges and prosecutors.
Fidesz also redrew election districts after coming into power in 2010 and granted the right to vote to approximately two million ethnic Hungarians throughout central Europe — who are more likely to align themselves with Orbán — allowing them to vote by mail, while Hungarians living in western Europe, who are less likely to support Orbán, had to vote in person. Orbán also kept a tight grip on the media, using it as a tool to reinforce government narratives and marginalize opposition voices. Many public news agencies received a disproportionate amount of state advertising, crowding out independent media, while privately owned newspapers and advertising companies were bought out by Orbán’s friends.
Economically, Fidesz’s “Orbanomics” model saw some early growth, but shifted toward a system that directed state resources and EU funds to politically connected allies. Though this approach supported the economy in the short term, Hungary has more recently experienced slower growth and rising deficits, which Magyar chose as leading issues in his campaign. On social policy, Orbán pursued a nationalist agenda centered on Christian values, using immigration and LGBTQ+ issues as core political mobilizers. Hungary adopted some of the strictest immigration policies in the EU — particularly during the migrant crisis in 2015 — including the use of barbed-wire fences, while framing migration as a threat to Hungary’s identity and culture. Some Hungarian policymakers continuously raised the issue of migration as related to terrorism, despite scant evidence. Additionally, the government enacted sweeping restrictions on LGBTQ+ rights, including constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage and adoption, and in 2025, banning Pride events.
Throughout the course of Orbán’s reign, he repeatedly used Hungary’s position within the European Union to obstruct certain measures, such as heavy Russian sanction packages, for the benefit of the Kremlin. Hungary was often described by EU analysts as literally holding the bloc hostage. Most notably, Orbán’s government blocked a recent €90 billion EU loan package for Ukraine ahead of Hungary’s election. Additionally, when assuming the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2024, Orbán was met with controversy after immediately traveling to Russia and arguing, upon return, that Russia’s domination in the war with Ukraine was so clear, that Moscow was ready for peace talks. In suggesting these peace talks, he advocated for Russia’s hardline negotiating terms, such as its territorial demands over areas of the Donbas, some of which Russia had not even occupied.
Orbán’s pro-Russian tilt developed more gradually than his broader illiberal shift. Early in his political career, during the collapse of the Soviet Union, he was a staunch anti-communist who sought to push Russian influence out of Hungary. Over time, and once elected as prime minister, his stance towards Russia changed dramatically. In 2014, four years after his election, Orbán signed a major deal with the Kremlin for a Russian loan to expand a Hungarian nuclear plant, which POLITICO opinion editor Jamie Dettmer identifies as a “standout moment” in Orbán’s tilt eastward, and as “the start of a meeting of ideological minds” between Orbán and the Kremlin. By the early 2010s Orbán had launched his “Eastern opening” policy, and was, at the time, meeting bilaterally with Russian President Vladimir Putin more often than almost any other European leader. The Orbán-Putin relationship had confounded observers for more than a decade.
Keith Johnson noted in a Foreign Policy piece in 2024 that although Hungary depends heavily on Russia for natural gas and nuclear energy, the relationship between Orbán and Putin looked, beyond the surface, more like a relationship built on an illiberal political alignment. Johnson notes that Orbán had never secured the type of discounted deal China did when agreeing to buy sanctioned Russian energy. While during the election period, Orbán painted his relationship with Russia as pragmatic, campaigning heavily on anti-war and anti-Ukrainian messaging, which Fidesz argued was a cause behind Hungary’s struggling economy, Orbán and Putin’s alignment was clearly much deeper. Unlike four years ago, the Ukrainian bogeyman failed to mobilize Hungarian voters, and Orbán’s messaging revealed a one-trick pony who was out of ideas and out of touch with the everyday needs of Hungarian citizens. Orbán underestimated Hungarians’ disapproval of high levels of corruption, a stagnant economy, and rising unemployment.
Days ahead of the election, leaked recordings of phone calls between Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov were published across Hungarian and European news outlets. One recording showed Szijjártó briefing Lavrov during a crucial December 2023 summit on whether to open accession talks with Ukraine and Moldova. Szijjártó reportedly left mid-meeting to update Lavrov on the state of negotiations, even offering to share confidential EU documents concerning issues central to the discussions. Additional reporting by VSquare, one of the outlets that published the phone calls, suggests that there was direct evidence of Russian involvement in Hungarian (and Slovak) efforts to weaken EU sanctions against Russia, including restrictions on Russia’s shadow fleet of false-flagged oil tankers.
In addition to Orbán’s relationship with Putin, Orbán has also had warm relations with U.S. President Donald Trump and many in his administration. Days before the election, Trump endorsed Orbán on Truth Social, writing that “Viktor works hard to Protect Hungary, Grow the Economy, Create Jobs, Promote Trade, Stop Illegal Immigration, and Ensure LAW AND ORDER!” U.S. Vice President JD Vance arrived in Hungary earlier that week to help campaign for Orbán. And despite Vance’s complaints about “Brussels Bureaucrats,” a somewhat hackneyed and well-worn line that Vance trots out at speeches in Europe, his visit provided no visible boost, and indeed, according to some analysts, was counterproductive for Orbán. Many observers point to global discontent to the United States’ role in Iran, which likely dampened Vance’s campaign for Orbán.
Nevertheless, despite Orbán and Vance’s claim that the European Union was interfering in the election — with Vance calling these elections “one of the worst examples of election interference I have ever seen or ever even read about” — it is clear that there is broader global dissatisfaction with political insiders, even if their messaging is populist. Tisza’s victory — and by extension Magyar’s — is a landmark moment for not only Hungary, but for Europe. Orbán had become one of European Union’s biggest thorns in its side, while Magyar had promised media transparency, economic revitalization, anti-corruption, and a deeper relationship with the EU and NATO.
And while Magyar represents the hopes of many Hungarians to re-align with Europe, especially as Russian hybrid campaigns continue to intensify across the continent, Magyar is hardly a complete political outsider. In fact, Magyar was a longtime Fidesz insider and former Orbán supporter before breaking with the party only two years ago. His political profile was thrust into the spotlight when he seized on public outrage over the revelation that former President Katalin Novák had pardoned a man involved in covering up sexual abuse in a children’s home. Magyar published a 2023 recording of a conversation with his ex-wife, who was involved in the cover-up, detailing the scandal. While Magyar had campaigned heavily against Orbán and Fidesz’s corruption, and has spoken out against Russia’s war in Ukraine, he has also suggested that he will remain pragmatic when it comes to relations with Moscow, not wanting to rule-out Russian imports. Even still, both Hungarians and European officials remain hopeful about the changes Magyar could bring after 16 years of Orbán’s rule. (TSC)
Péter Magyar’s party dramatically ended 16 years of Orbán in last Sunday’s vote, source: SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
