How to end democracy: Viktor Orbán’s manual in Hungary inspires Trump and the far right

In summer 2014, Viktor Orbán I was ecstatic. So much so that, at a summer camp, he outlined his plan to transform Hungary. “The Hungarian nation is not a sum of individuals, but a community that needs to be organized, strengthened and developed. And, in this sense, the new State that we are building is a illiberal statenon-liberal.” Without knowing it then, his promise would become a prediction about the authoritarian drift from half the world.

At 61 years old, Orbán now faces the final stretch of his fourth consecutive term as prime ministerthe fifth in total. A dominance unprecedented since the era of Janos Kadarthe communist dictator who ruled Hungary during 32 years of the Cold War. However, after two decades in power, this could be Orbán’s last triumphant week. This Sunday the country celebrates elections parliamentary elections in which the charismatic opponent Péter Hungarian It has the favor of the surveys. The probability of a change of course in Budapest makes these elections the most important of the year in Europa.

Orbán’s mutation

Ironically, Orbán’s political career began in 1989 with an anti-communist plea in favor of democracyliberal values ​​and the fall of the Iron Curtain. A year earlier he had founded the Fidesza liberal-nationalist movement that crystallized into a center-right party.

After the collapse of the USSROrbán and his people were consolidating themselves as references in the conservative space Hungarian until reaching the Government in 1998, at only 35 years old. His first mandate was a warning of what was to come: corruptionaggressive style and attempts to both erode the democratic process and purge media and judicial institutions.

Orbán lost his next election, but took advantage of his time in the shadows to turn Fidesz into a national-populist vehicle purged of critics and focused on himself. After crossing the arid desert of oppositionin 2010 he won with the mission of never being defeated again. He began his second term by using his absolute majority to fundamentally alter the Constitution and, therefore, the country. He took advantage of the fact that Hungary –already a full member of the European Union– had been hit by the financial crisis that delegitimized market capitalism and, with it, the liberal democracy. Under his dictation behind closed doors, he added the support of traditional, Christian and nationalist values ​​to the Magna Carta, and modified the electoral law to adapt it to his interests.

His reactionary turn aroused so much social indignation that, in the 2014 elections, he lost almost half a million votes. Even so, its electoral reform guaranteed Fidesz an overwhelming parliamentary majority that has translated into a free bar for its illiberal ambitions. Nobody could cough on him.

Erosion of freedoms

Since then, Orbán has ruled Hungary with an iron fist, making intimidation his main method of governance. In just over a decade, the Hungarian leader has imposed constitutional changes that shield his power while ending the independence of the judiciarythe freedom of thought of the universities and the plurality of media to subject them to his will. It has also restricted the rights of the community LGTBI and ethnic minorities such as gypsieshas criminalized humanitarian organizations that help migrant people and has imposed by law that women who want abort are obliged to hear the heartbeat of the fetus first.

Orbán has squandered Hungarian democracy to cling to power. The UE confirmed the illiberal mutation of one of its member states when, in 2022, the European Parliament ruled that “it is no longer a democracy,” but rather a “hybrid regime of electoral autocracy“, a country with elections, but without respect for democratic norms. Orbán has not carried out a military coup or imprisoned opposition leaders, but – according to the book Embedded Autocracy: Hungary in the European Union (2024) – has indeed known how to appeal to Christian nationalism, the self-censorship of Hungarians and their historical “lack of concern” for the political system to impose their will.

Manual against democracy

However, what stops Brussels is a source of problems has become a manual for the autocratic ambitions of leaders of radical right in countries like Sweden, Slovakia, Austria, Croatia o Spain. Without going any further, the president of Vox, Santiago Abascalhas defined Orbán as “the true protector of Europe.” Donald Trump He has also praised the Hungarian, describing him as “fantastic” and “respected.” Fidesz has taken pride in having shared its strategies with the advisors of the president of USAa fascination of the MAGA movement (Make America Great Again) that is already being translated into practical actions deployed at breakneck speed. The interest of Trumpism in Orbán it is such that the vice president J.D. Vance He visited Budapest this week to support him and together criticize the EU, an unusual electoral interference.

In addition to resorting to conspiracy theories already Islamophobiamany far-right formations have taken note of the first – and, perhaps, most crucial – step to take over a country: control the press. Inspired by the Russia of his now ally Vladimir PutinOrbán began by purging the public media to put his allies in front. Afterwards, he withdrew institutional advertising from private companies to bankrupt them and allow oligarchs faithful to his vision, showered with money from European funds, to end up buying them.

All of this has given rise to an almost monopolistic media landscape under its yoke in which the few critical media outlets that exist are forced to print their copies outside the country. The director of the weekly Hungarian VoiceCsaba Lukacs, has warned of this drift in statements to the NPR channel: “We are not yet in Turkey because journalists are not imprisoned. And we are not yet in Russia because we do not fall out of windows. But every day we are closer to it.”

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