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The 12th of April 2026 marked a sea-change in Hungary, as Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party was beaten by his former colleague Peter Magyár, the leader of Tisza. Despite a gerrymandered electoral system Tisza was able to attain 141 out of 199 seats in the parliament, a ‘constitutional-amending’ majority; previously thought impossible.
This was a highly anticipated election, closely watched by Europe, by Vladimir Putin, and overseas by Donald Trump. This is because, although Hungary is a small country in the heart of Europe, these elections mean far more than that: for Putin, the loss of an ally, a mole within the European Council, and a thorn in the side of European cohesion in support of Ukraine; for Trump, who strongly supported Orbán’s electoral campaign an ideological ally; and for Europe potentially unlocking among other things Orbán’s often immovable veto in the EU Council.
Before taking its leadership, Magyar himself belonged to Orbán’s Fidesz party until 2024 and, in some respects, isn’t entirely different from Orbán.
Magyar presented himself as a figure of change, capitalising on widespread dissatisfaction with corruption within Fidesz. He was the insider who understood the distortions and systemic corruption of Orbàn’s party, and who therefore appeared to be the only person capable of truly challenging it.
This article examines the significance of this result for Hungarian politics and, more broadly, for Europe. Although significant, this event was still unique to its context.
Magyar and Orbán “at the mirror ”
Taking a closer look at his political agenda, Tisza’s leader remains a right-wing political figure with policy positions not too dissimilar to his predecessor, notably on migration and civil rights issues. Interestingly, although Tisza MEPs sit within the EPP in the EU Parliament and generally vote in line with it, they also often engage in tactical alignment with Fidesz on politically sensitive issues. Indeed, a recent study by the European Policy Centre found that, during roll-call votes in the EU Parliament, Tisza MEPs voted in line with Fidesz in 48% of cases, particularly on issues such as adopting a security-focused approach to migration and opposing stronger support for Kyiv and harsher condemnations of Russia.
There is, however, one major difference between these two nationalist figures: while Viktor Orbán, was convinced that constant blackmail would have eternally secured him a politically profitable monopolist role in the Union, on the other hand Magyar believes that Hungary has a better chance of prospering if it remains closely tied to the EU, playing the “nice guy” with Brussels to unlock billions in EU funds currently frozen over systemic violations.
The outcome of this reasoning is clear: Orbán’s defeat is symbolically important, but it would be naive to automatically believe it will resolve Hungary’s tensions with the rest of the Union.
The election campaign
The fact that Viktor Orbán’s electoral campaign was conducted on an uneven playing field on countless fronts is what makes this victory particularly astonishing.
Orbán did absolutely everything, truly everything, to secure victory, and even so, he failed, which is a tragic sign of how tired and dissatisfied the Hungarian people had become with his deeply corrupt and inefficient government. Setting aside the constitutional reforms that reshaped the country in order to centralize power around himself, Orbán conducted an electoral campaign on an entirely different plane of reality, what Anne Applebaum rightly described as the first “Post-Reality Political Campaign.”
Following this strategy, an artificial sense of urgency, threat and fear was created, with the government obsessively warning that the opposition would have served Brussels and Kyiv interests, dragging Hungary into war.
As per Orbán himself:
“they will make deals with Brussels and fulfil all of their demands. They will say ‘yes’ to war, financing Ukraine (…) We do not want to send Hungarian youth to the front lines and we do not want to destroy the country and the Hungarian economy (…) we must first and foremost stay out of the war. For this, we ask the Hungarian people to grant us authority in 2026“
Orbán therefore sought to flood the average Hungarian citizen’s social media feed with vast amounts of AI-generated content. In the final weeks before the election, for instance, deepfake videos have surfaced depicting Magyar taking orders from Von Der Leyen regarding the war in Ukraine, or portraying fathers dying in war and children left orphaned in the event of a Tisza victory.
This takes place within the broader framework of almost total control over the media exercised by Fidesz’. Starting in 2010, the government withdrew public advertising money from media organizations that were critical of the status quo, while private companies were also pressured to stop advertising with news organizations seen as hostile to Fidesz, or risk losing government-related business. Many independent media companies weakened or collapsed, and business allies of Viktor Orbán bought them cheaply. All of this ultimately resulted in enormous difficulty for Hungarian citizens in accessing information that differs from state propaganda.
However, despite the massive propaganda apparatus deployed by the government, the strategy failed. Voter turnout surpassed 78 percent, and Tisza achieved a landslide victory, securing 141 parliamentary seats, while Fidesz obtained only 52, and the far-right Mi Hazánk won 6.
The result represents a political earthquake in Hungary: not only did Orbán lose after years of dominating the political system through media control, institutional reforms and fear-based campaigning, but Tisza also surpassed the two-thirds parliamentary threshold required to amend and pass the country’s most important laws.
What lessons can be derived from this change of government?
Politically illiberalism isn’t the inevitable endpoint of European and Western politics in this current era, with certain caveats. Racked by poly-crisis and economic stagnation amid fast developments, European voters are increasingly turning to anti-system parties in frustration with centrists. These parties often offering a ‘streamlined’ policy prospectus seek to address malaise by shortcutting democratic and legal procedures, with the sense that anti-system parties’ rise is somewhat inevitable. The approval ratings of the now departing Starmer, soon-to-leave Macron, and Merz can attest. Often citing Fidesz-era policies in Hungary as an example, these anti-system parties rallied to Orbán’s cause in the weeks leading up to the polls. However this outcome demonstrates that, in defeat of Europe’s ‘flagship’ illiberal’ party, the march toward illiberal parties in power isn’t inevitable. Additionally that ‘playbook’ can exist for both those wishing to see them fail or succeed.
Put simply: Fidesz was the incumbent governing party overseeing stagnation and corruption among their associated elites, a combination that proved politically toxic across the board. While rampant state capture is unique to Fidesz’s tenure, ubiquitous structural economic challenges that lead to stagnation likewise bode ill for European governments’ electoral prospects elsewhere. Seeing most of these currently are of ‘centre-left and right’ persuasion, their alternatives among the more extreme flanks of politics have fertile ground to make continued gains politically. Therefore just because Fidesz was defeated in Hungary, it doesn’t follow that the RN, Reform UK, and AFD will experience the same fates in their next elections.
On the contrary, politically these anti-system parties across Europe are already accordingly adjusting their electoral strategies, further indicating that Fidesz’s defeat won’t necessarily be read-across elsewhere. These parties’ leaders supported Orbán’s policies and campaigned for him. Best exemplified by JD Vance’s intervention in favour of Fidesz and its other MAGA-linked interventions in European politics. However in defeat among other events such as the Iran war, these parties are distancing themselves from that association. Moreover this indicates that these parties have learned that formerly close association is politically toxic among electorates that have soured to American-ties amid the Trump administration, or specific association to Orbán’s politics.
Reforming the state post-illiberal reforms
Orbán’s system became in essence a victim of its own success, as Laszlo argues, because it ‘consumed itself’. Irrefutable self-enrichment in contrast to the experience of average Hungarians created the circumstances in which Tisza’s message of structural unfairness cut through, to an extent large enough to make a substantive difference electorally. It proves that even where the odds are so against liberalising and anti-illiberal movements struggling to overcome structural obstacles, they can in certain circumstances be successful when this ‘hold’ on power comes undone.
Undoing illiberal reforms, entrenched after 16 years may be difficult, as the Tusk government’s efforts in Poland demonstrate. Magyar indicated his desire to undo the various state reforms Orbán’s government implemented over the course of 16 years in power, however it could face entrenched Fidesz-era officials that can offer resistance. Much alike how the Tusk government in Poland has often had to resort to complicated routes around PiS-era and aligned officials such as President Nawrocki, these obstacles could hinder their realisation. Similar to Poland, Hungary’s President is aligned with the previous governing party and could present a legal obstacle to the new government’s legislative agenda. Having a veto over implementation of legislation and being near un-impeachable likely prompted Magyar’s public pronouncement calling confidence in the President into question. However, where Hungary differs from Poland is in Tisza’s ‘constitutional majority’, allowing it both the political authority and legal power to enact these mooted reforms.
Additionally as some analysts have observed Magyar’s mooted cabinet of political outsiders could revamp the state, equally it could experience difficulty realising these. Having run with a slate of candidates with little political and governing experience, Tisza’s government novel approaches state reforms and issues. Yet these new officials having no prior experience in running a government department, largely staffed with Orbán-era officials could face, as observed by Hungarian analyst Bulcsú Hunyadi, inertia via their departments resisting or slowing down reforms. Overall complicating further potential options to realising the proposed reforms.
Insofar there can be a read-across, as mooted by Alexander Cooley, this could hold lessons for upcoming U.S. midterm elections. Similar to Fidesz-era reforms the Trump administration in enacting ‘Project 2025’, implemented an architecture to ‘entrench’ the incumbent’s power to disadvantage and to undermine the political competition. Like in the U.S. recently, government departments are staffed with Fidesz-era officials and legal architecture that bolstered the executive branch’s power over that of the judicial and legislative. Tisza’s election and subsequent pending reforms in government could therefore somewhat serve as a model for Democrats aiming to overcome entrenched MAGA officials in power in the long-term.
The new government’s relations with the EU, China, Russia and the U.S.
As far as EU Council issues are concerned Orbán’s removal could herald a more cooperative stance toward EU initiatives, but not an entirely agreeable one either. Having previously acted as a ‘thorn in the side’ of EU-wide decision-making, Orbán would frequently hold out approval to extract concessions from other leaders. While now Hungary won’t operate as a ‘spoiler’, it won’t be able to provide cover to other leaders of Eurosceptic governments such as Slovakia’s Fico and Bulgaria’s Radev. Both these leaders are Ukraine-support sceptics, however have in Fico’s case taken a more pragmatic approach in the past as opposed to Orbán’s stand-offs. Moreover notably, as far as EU Council Summits are concerned these won’t likely be cliff-edge moments as far as Hungary is concerned.
As far as wider foreign policy posture aims are concerned embedded economic relations with Russia and China could also complicate these. In this vein with the cooperative stance toward Brussels that Magyar envisions could on the face of it require Hungary to distance itself more proactively from its ties to Russia. Yet this is complicated by embedded commitments, relations, and contracts with Russian and Chinese entities in the country. A renovation project at the Paks Nuclear Power plant (contributing nearly 50% of the country’s energy mix) is reliant on a Russian conglomerate. Hungary still, pending the reparations by the Druzhba pipeline in Ukraine, relies on imported Russian oil and gas. Likewise significant Chinese investments in the country, such as the trial production of BYD e-vehicles in Szeged complicate future disentanglements or distancing. Magyar may rhetorically have turned a corner in the relationship with Brussels, but these entrenched pre-existing commitments could overshadow any EU-wide initiatives to distance themselves from both.
Having opposed his election in sending JD Vance to campaign for Orbán, the Trump administration has set an awkward basis for relations between the governments. While not explicitly shunning or condemning the U.S.’ administration for electoral interference, Magyar indicated that he wouldn’t outright seek immediate contact with Trump. Although uncertain, it’s unlikely that relations will start off on a close-footing as they had under Orbán. Considering the close relationship between Fidesz and the MAGA movement, this new government presents a marked change in relations between Budapest and Washington; as previously demonstrated by Orbán’s hosting of CPAC and other MAGA-affiliated think-tanks in Hungary. Should the Tisza government seek to investigate these links in an effort to uncover and address systemic state capture, this could further alter this dynamic overall.
In summary
In conclusion, Orbán’s defeat represents a major political turning point not only for Hungary, but also for Europe more broadly. After sixteen years of increasingly centralised and illiberal rule, the victory of Tisza demonstrates that even political systems distorted by years of constitutional manipulation can still be electorally challenged.
However, this result shouldn’t be interpreted as a complete ideological rupture with the past. Magyar remains rooted in a conservative and nationalist political culture that still overlaps with Fidesz on several issues, particularly migration and Ukraine. What changes most significantly is Hungary’s likely approach toward the European Union: less confrontational, more pragmatic, and more willing to cooperate with Brussels.
In this sense, the Hungarian case offers an important lesson for European politics. It would be overly simplistic to celebrate this result as proof of a broader rejection of nationalist and illiberal politics across Europe. Instead, what happened is that a major illiberal party caused such extensive systemic damage that it ultimately lost the trust of the electorate, while providing Tisza with an opportunity to propose a compelling prospectus to voters fed up with corruption and stagnation.
Ultimately, the rise of illiberal and anti-system movements is not inevitable, but neither is their decline. Hungary proved that the actual state of affairs and the well-being of citizens ultimately prevail over political rhetoric, for better or for worse.
Further Questions:
- How is Hungary unique in contrast to other European states?
- How will this outcome shape Eurosceptic parties’ national and EU campaign strategies?
- What will Hungary’s position be in the EU by the end of the 2020s?
For further reading:
Applebaum, A. (2024): Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World. New York: Doubleday.
Bos, E., & Lorenz, A. (Eds.). (2023). Politics and Society in Hungary: (De-)Democratization, Orbán and the EU.
Springer. Körösényi, A., Illés, G., & Gyulai, A. (2020). The Orbán Regime: Plebiscitary Leader Democracy in the Making. Routledge.
