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We’ve shown that even entrenched illiberal regimes are not invincible

Zsuzsanna Szelényi

“Europe! Europe! Europe!” That’s what tens of thousands of us chanted on the banks of the Danube on Sunday as Péter Magyar addressed the jubilant crowd. On a record turnout of 77%, Hungarians have delivered a political earthquake, giving Magyar’s Tisza party the first real opportunity in 16 years to dismantle the system built by Viktor Orbán.

In truth, the foundations of Fidesz had been cracking for some time. A 2024 political scandal exposed a deep moral collapse at the heart of his regime. It also shattered one of the central myths of his rule: that his political instincts were infallible.
Magyar’s improbable rise was made possible by the government’s worsening economic record and growing anger over its pro-Russian, anti-European stance. For years, Hungarian voters had felt trapped between an authoritarian government and a feeble, fractured opposition. Magyar broke that deadlock.

That he did so is remarkable. He was forced to confront a party-state: a system sustained by vast institutional, financial and propaganda resources, and defended by relentless smear campaigns. I know how daunting that can be, having faced it myself as an opposition politician only a few years ago.

Yet Magyar understood something essential. He campaigned across the country with relentless energy, going to small towns and provincial centres long thought politically closed. His conservative-populist language insulated him from familiar attacks against liberal politicians. By placing the “east or west” question at the centre , he gave voters a clarity that has been long absent from Hungarian politics .

In his victory speech, Magyar made ambitious promises to restore the rule of law and repair relations with the EU and Nato. These promises will also be extraordinarily difficult to fulfil. Magyar may have won power, but he has not inherited a normal state. He faces severe economic pressures, immense public expectations and an opposition in Fidesz that, even in defeat, retains extensive informal power and influence. Orbán’s system has infiltrated the state, the media, the economy and the political culture itself. Removing Orbán from office is one thing. Dismantling Orbánism is quite another.

And yet, a decisive threshold has been crossed. In the end, the Orbán regime’s strategy of devoting every available resource to its own perpetuation produced not durability but exhaustion. The system hardened, overreached and finally broke.
I cannot be more proud that we Hungarians have shown that even entrenched illiberal regimes are not invincible.

But the hardest question of all is not whether Orbán can be defeated, but whether the political, legal and moral wreckage he leaves behind can truly be repaired.

Programme director of the CEU Democracy Institute, and author of Tainted Democracy: Viktor Orbán and the Subversion of Hungary

This is a victory for liberalism in the world

Nathalie Tocci

Rarely is an election as significant outside a country as within it. Hungary is such a case. Péter Magyar’s decisive victory offers Hungary the opportunity to crawl out of the hole that Orbán has dug since taking power in 2010. The Hungarian people have overwhelmingly voted for change, and that is now a possibility – but it is not a foregone conclusion.

Poland’s example shows how hard it is to undo years of authoritarianism, especially when the system has been rigged to ensure its own self-preservation. It will not be easy for Magyar to rebuild the rule of law, an independent judiciary, a free press, a vibrant civil society, and the protection of human rights. He will face fierce opposition from all those who benefited from Orbán’s crony capitalism. Magyar’s election was therefore a crucial battle in what remains a long war.

Hungary’s route back to democracy is likely to be slow and uncertain, but the wider political impact of Orbán’s defeat is profound and immediate. It removes a thorn in the EU’s side – especially regarding Ukraine.

Globally, Orbán has been a trailblazer, symbol and inspiration for the nationalist right. He rose to power when Trump was a real estate developer, Giorgia Meloni an obscure junior minister, Marine Le Pen and Nigel Farage fringe political figures, and Alice Weidel a financial consultant. The Hungarian autocrat has served as a model for far-right politicians across Europe and the US – which explains why his campaign solicited the endorsements of these leaders, including an official visit by US vice-president JD Vance just days before the election.

Orbán’s defeat does not guarantee an immediate return to democracy in Hungary, but it does mark a victory for liberalism in the world, even more than in Hungary itself.

International relations expert and Guardian Europe columnist

No far-right leader can fill his shoes. That’s the thing to celebrate

Cas Mudde

Hungary’s election is a reminder that much of the public discourse wildly overstates the strength of authoritarianism (the so-called “f-word”) and the weakness of democracy. Orbán’s acceptance of the result also again drives home how exceptional Donald Trump is in refusing to recognise his election defeat in 2020.

The result will be used for all kinds of fallacious claims, from this marking the end of the far right in Europe to the idea that Orbán lost because of his association with the toxicity of the Trump regime. But in fact, this was a specifically Hungarian event, to be explained by specifically Hungarian factors – such as 16 years of corruption and economic mismanagement – rather than international ones, including JD Vance’s visit to Budapest.

Sure, the US Republicans will probably lose badly in the midterm elections later this year, and the National Rally might again fail to win the French presidency next year, but this will not be because of Orbán’s defeat. And while it is true that the Orbán regime has been the most important funder of the infrastructure of the European far-right, including so-called “thinktanks” and “universities”, its political impact seems modest at best.

This result nevertheless has a strong symbolic value for European politics. Orbán replaced Marine Le Pen as the unofficial leader of the still heavily divided European far right during Europe’s 2015 so-called “refugee crisis”. He has also given the far right a permanent presence in the European Council from where he vetoed or obstructed many EU decisions, and in the European Commission (Hungary’s commissioners have shown more loyalty to Orbán than to the EU). 

Orbán is gone, for now. And while there are many other far-right politicians (Giorgia Meloni for example) and European disrupters (such as Slovak premier Robert Fico), none have the intent, power or resources to step into the void that Orbán’s defeat creates. And that is what we should celebrate today.

Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia, and author of The Far Right Today

The EU must urgently find ways to deal with future Orbáns

Zselyke Csaky

This is a moment of history for Hungary and Hungarians. And the outcome is momentous for the rest of Europe too. A 16-year-long illiberal, anti-democratic experiment is at an end, and this is the time for celebration. But with a large majority comes an immense responsibility for the new government in Budapest. Europe too has urgent lessons to learn.

Across EU capitals and in Brussels, Péter Magyar’s victory has brought huge sighs of relief. But the bated breath before the vote, and the fact that many EU leaders were simply hoping the “Orbán problem” would go away after this election, exposes a deeper issue: the EU still lacks a coherent strategy for tackling democratic backsliding within its ranks. That could come back and bite the union again, sooner than expected.

It has not been for lack of trying. But the existing rules of the club do not allow member states to be ejected even if they cease to uphold the rule of law. In 2018, in response to Orbán’s breaches of the rule of law, Brussels launched its article 7 process, and has frozen more than €30bn of EU funds to Budapest. But it never managed to secure the support of all member states needed to turn action into real impact. And many EU countries found it convenient to hide behind some of Orbán’s obstructions; his vocal opposition when it came to migration or other divisive topics. The lesson is that the EU must better equip itself to deal with such situations: not just future mini-Orbáns, but a not-so-mini Marine Le Pen or Jordan Bardella in France.

Magyar’s election offers Europe an opportunity to emerge stronger and to confront its underlying problems. This is a chance to finally give Ukraine the support it needs, to lock in an ambitious seven-year EU budget, push forward enlargement, and to chip away at the unanimity requirement in foreign policy that has allowed individual member states to hold the continent hostage.

With 2027 elections approaching, the EU needs to act fast. What Europe does in the months ahead will determine whether Magyar’s win marks a genuine turning point, or merely a temporary reprieve.

Senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform

Hungary under Magyar will support Ukraine

Mujtaba Rahman

The word “historic” would be an understatement. Péter Magyar’s Tisza party’s landslide is projected to give it the two-thirds constitutional majority it needs to begin to unravel Viktor Orbán’s stranglehold over Hungary, which extends across government, the judiciary, the media and beyond. Huge sections of the country – Fidesz strongholds for the past 16 years and more – fell to Tisza.

The scale of the victory left Orbán with no hope of disputing the parliamentary arithmetic. It means the government will probably be sworn in on 12 May, without any significant hitches.

Magyar will soon be working non-stop to release billions of euros in blocked EU grants and loans, hoping Brussels will go easy on its demands and offer some flexibility, which is likely. He will reverse Orbán’s veto over aid for Ukraine and agree to pave the way for €90bn to flow to Ukraine. He was extremely cautious on this pre-election, but without the need now to try to appease Fidesz voters, Hungary will gradually move into the European mainstream on most subjects.

At home, Maygar is likely to dismantle the Fidesz public relations machine and various public bodies, such as the Sovereignty Protection Office, which Orbán created to harass NGOs and other critics and perceived enemies. The incoming prime minister will enjoy a grace period, but will come under tremendous pressure to lift such measures as retail price caps, which Orbán has deployed to promote his “protection of families” policies.

Other problems loom. The Magyar team has little governing or executive experience yet the expectations of them will be huge. Lavish government spending in the first three months of the year will also limit Magyar’s budgetary freedom. The grace period could be short-lived.

Eurasia group’s managing director for Europe