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On Sunday, Hungarians will go to the polls to decide on their country’s direction for the next four years in an election that looks as if it will be a nail-biter. Viktor Orbán, Europe’s longest-serving prime minister – who has been in power for 16 years and transformed his country into an electoral autocracy – could lose the election. Ahead of the vote, EU officials have high expectations for change in Hungary under a potential new leadership. Politico reported that “the Brussels establishment is praying for [Péter] Magyar to win, hoping a Tisza government will deepen ties with the EU”.
Magyar became a trailblazer when he entered the Hungarian political scene in 2024 after a political scandal implicating the former president Katalin Novák and the minister of justice, Magyar’s ex-wife, Judit Varga. By addressing the socioeconomic concerns of ordinary Hungarians, politicising the run-down healthcare and education systems and highlighting the country’s deteriorating economic situation and corrupt government practices, Magyar has steadily risen in the polls.
And yet while an electoral victory for his Tisza party seems within reach, less than a week before the election observers should not set their expectations too high for the election outcome – or for Magyar’s prospects were he to become Hungary’s new prime minister.
First, although all independent pollsters show Magyar and his Tisza party clearly ahead of Fidesz, the prospect of him actually winning the election remains uncertain. While the elections are free, they are unfair, as Orbán has tilted the electoral playing field in his favour over the years, creating an unfair advantage. Measures include repeated gerrymandering, adding “winner compensation” to benefit the strongest party in the districts and granting Hungarian minorities abroad, who are overwhelmingly Fidesz supporters, the right to vote. In addition, investigations have uncovered systematic electoral fraud, including chain voting, voter buying and intimidation, particularly in Hungary’s poorest regions.
Under these circumstances, it remains unclear whether Tisza’s votes will translate into a parliamentary majority, let alone a constitutional majority. Crucially, without a two-thirds majority in parliament it will be near impossible to dismantle the Orbán regime. Over the past 16 years, Fidesz has entrenched its ideas and personnel into Hungary’s political system through cardinal laws that require a supermajority to change or abolish them.
Bringing Hungary back into the fold of electoral democracies would require replacing the Fidesz loyalists who are constitutional court judges and heads of key public institutions, such as the prosecutor general and the chair of the media authority. Making matters worse, Hungary’s president, Tamás Sulyok, elected by parliament, is another Fidesz loyalist who would ordinarily remain in office until 2029. While the president’s role is largely ceremonial, Fidesz has recently passed a bill reinforcing it, possibly in anticipation of being ousted from power in the elections. The president could thus present another obstacle to a Tisza government by sending legislation back or referring it to the Fidesz-packed constitutional court for review.
Given these circumstances, a situation could arise similar to that in Poland when the Law and Justice party (PiS) lost the 2023 elections. After defeating the radical right party, prime minister Donald Tusk was accused of resorting to unlawful means to restore democracy, drawing criticism from legal scholars. In a concerning portent for Hungarian democrats, since the election of PiS candidate Karol Nawrocki as president last year, he has regularly obstructed Tusk’s government by vetoing essential legislation, including a recent judicial reform that was part of the government’s rule-of-law agenda.
A new Hungarian government would face similar obstacles, but an even steeper uphill battle. After 16 years in power, twice as long as PiS in Poland, Fidesz is much more entrenched in the state than PiS ever was, making a return to the status quo ante even more challenging.
Even if Tisza’s vote share translates into a majority in parliament and enables it to implement reforms, democrats should not expect too much from a Magyar government. The leader of the opposition comes from a conservative family and was a member of Fidesz for more than two decades – he spent years working for the Orbán regime and is clearly ideologically aligned with his former party.
In fact, some preliminary analyses of Tisza’s voting patterns in the European parliament suggest that the party mostly aligns with Fidesz, especially on immigration and Ukraine. While this could be tactical, given the sensitivity of these issues in Hungarian political discourse, Tisza’s party programme also vows to reject the EU’s migrant pact and quotas and to oppose Ukraine’s accelerated accession to the EU. So even though Tisza will undoubtedly be a more constructive force in its relations with European partners, some fundamental disagreements will remain.
Finally, although Tisza’s voter base mainly comprises liberal and leftwing voters, progressives should not get their hopes up for a swift transition to liberal democracy in Hungary. According to recent polling, the new parliament will be made up solely of rightwing parties: the rightwing Tisza, the far-right Fidesz and potentially the extreme-right Our Homeland Movement. Magyar, while generally claiming to support equality, has so far avoided taking a clear supportive stance on some core ideological issues, such as LGBTQ+ rights. While this could also be part of a strategic approach to avoid offering Fidesz any vulnerabilities it could exploit for its propaganda, it is also in line with his political history and the rightwing nature of his party’s programme.
Considering the challenges Magyar will encounter if he is elected, not to mention his own rightwing ideology, it seems unlikely that he would prioritise restoring liberal democracy to Hungary beyond trying to undo 16 years of Orbánism. Progressives and democrats need to manage their expectations ahead of Sunday’s vote. As it stands, the best case scenario for Hungary is a return to electoral democracy under a Magyar government. Liberal democracy, however, will probably remain out of reach for now.
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