Turning page after 16 years in , where the Tisza (acronym for ‘Respect and Freedom’) party won him 138 seats in the Hungarian parliament to just 55 for the former prime minister’s Fidesz (acronym for ‘Alliance of Young Democrats’) party Viktor Orban. Viktor Orbán was a precursor of anti-liberal populism, having preceded Donald Trump.
The 16 consecutive years in power is a record for a European Union leader with Angela Merkel coming second by a few months. Not coincidentally, the winner of Sunday’s election, Peter Magyar, spoke of “regime change”.
Many have even compared the moment to the collapse of communism in 1989, due to the fall of a powerful politician and power system, even if Hungary’s political scene is now sealed with anti-communism.
Orban’s single-issue and “anti-establishment” campaign
Viktor Orbán’s defeat seems to be due to the fact that the populist leader lost touch with the positive alluring promises that are integral to a populist leadership and resorted to an election campaign based on “anti-ism”, in the words of the French thinker Jacques Gillard, that is, the tendency to completely differentiate oneself from what one posits as an opponent: In this regard, Orbán’s campaign was anti-Europeanist against Brussels, anti-Ukrainian, anti-immigrant, anti-woke, anti-Soros and so on, having abandoned the art of attracting the people.
Relying too much on pro-ruling television, Orbán made a one-issue presentation of the Ukraine issue, portraying Magyar as an agent of Volodymyr Zelensky who would involve Hungary in war. In this way, it was forgotten that the success of Fidesz in the early 2010s was due to the fact that it could combine the culture wars with a spectacular fight against unemployment, a 20% increase in the workforce in the midst of an economic crisis, – with the help of course from German car manufacturers who used Hungary as their base – and a settlement of the Hungarian debt.
Magyar’s positive unifying message, how he won over Generation Z
The winner Peter Magyar, on the other hand, because he comes from the ruling party Fidesz, with which he was in politics until 2024, shares many of his concerns, such as the perceived need to control immigration. However, Magyar in his own campaign proposed a positive vision of deepening the relationship with the European Union and focused on issues of health, education, overcoming corruption.
His emphasis was on the practical issues facing Hungarian households due to the downturn in the economy and unemployment. THE Alex Leonasa professor at the Karolyi Gaspar University of Budapest, observes in “Vima”: “Peter Magyar presented a unifying face that he will be the prime minister of all Hungarians, while Orbán was polarizing and divisive.
Magyar’s tactics worked, as Hungary is a country where socialism, as well as a kind of internationalism associated with it, has been delegitimized by the negative communist experience. With his emphasis on “all Hungarians”, Magyar simultaneously appealed to patriotic reflexes, but also made it easier to rally liberals and leftists, who wished to overthrow Orbán, but not to replace him with a government that would create new exclusions. Magyar also took the youths with him. “Generation Z” identifies with him because he is younger and because they themselves want closer relations with Europe, for Hungary to cease to be an exception.”
The Vance visit and the Iran war hurt Orbán
Instead of paying attention to practical problems, Viktor Orbán followed logic, which was archetypically expressed by American Vice President Jay D. Vance, who rushed to Budapest to defend him towards the end of the election period. Vance argued that Brussels bureaucrats tried to destroy the Hungarian economy out of pure hatred of the Hungarian leader. This logic of self-immolation eventually backfired at the polls.
“Orbán,” explains Professor Leonas, “paid for Trump’s policy shift from pro-peace to pro-war foreign policy. In Trump’s first four years and until last year, Orbán insisted that this kind of right-wing populism and sovereignty, which is common to Trumpism and to him, is a force for peace in the international arena. However, after Trump’s war adventures and indeed the war in Iran, which degrades the living standards of Europeans, the peacemaker Trump’s narrative collapsed with a wave, with the result that Vance’s visit harmed the then ruling party.
Magyar’s pretentious ideological ambiguity
If Viktor Orbán fell into the error of “anti-ism”, Peter Magyar seems to suffer from a related political pathology, “fugetism”, as the French term “dégagisme” could be rendered (from the imperative “dégage” which had as its equivalent imperative in Greek demonstrations “fygete”/”go away”). The French term was launched by the Congolese Eric Moulalou, but eventually it was used to describe movements of the last 15 years that were articulated around the need to overthrow a dictatorial regime.
“Dégagisme” consists in a politician formulating an ideological minimum in his program, in order not to alienate voters, who are connected not endogenously but by the external need to leave a leader who has become odious due to a long regime. Both Hungarian liberals and leftists joined Magyar’s party, along with conservatives and patriots, in his bid to topple a 16-year regime that now largely controlled the judiciary.
Now that Magyar’s Tisza party has taken power the differences in the demands of its disparate supporters are expected to explode. But certainly not before disbursing the European funds that remained outstanding due to accusations of violation of the rule of law by the previous Orbán government. Peter Magyar has refrained from speaking too clearly about the Russia-Ukraine war, while he usually fails to touch on Orbán’s policies against the rights of the LGBTQI+ community.
Relief for the bloodless change
Alex Leonas observes: “Nobody knows what Peter Magyar really stands for. It is a “cat in the bag”, according to the Hungarian expression. Everyone just thought that 16 years of Orban was too much, 20 would be a disaster. It remains a mystery how Magyar will walk the tightrope between right and left, how he will preserve the most popular elements of Orbán’s legacy while moving forward with what is truly urgent, such as the fight against corruption.
Even the fact that there is a bloodless transition after 16 years points to a possible agreement between Magyar and Orbán. Most believe that even if some flagrant cases of corruption are punished, most of the money that has escaped will not return, and this is partly the price of a peaceful transition. Hungarians are currently feeling relief that it turned out that we were still a democracy despite 16 consecutive years of the same government, a feeling of relief similar to that of 1989, when the transition from communism to democracy happened without bloodshed.”
“Russians go home”: The revivals of a slogan
Among the geopolitical stakes of the government change is that a 90 billion euro loan from the European Union to Ukraine will likely no longer be blocked by Hungary. Under the Orbán governments, Hungary was seen as Russia’s Trojan horse in Europe, or, to use a closer metaphor, as a Russian “matryoshka” doll, where beneath Orbán’s outer doll might be an inner one of Vladimir Putin’s. The campaign even saw the slogan “Russians go home” against Orbán’s party, a slogan that has carried heavy weight since 1956, when Soviet tanks stormed Budapest.
Professor Leonas observes: “It is interesting to observe a paradox. Orban himself became famous because he had often used and revived the slogan “Russians go home” during the end of the communist period. He was not initially considered pro-Russian, since as an anti-communist he was initially against Russian interventionism and had convinced the world about it.
His attitude changed drastically after 2010. The peak was after 2022, when the government media almost portrayed Ukraine as the aggressor and certainly as the country that is dangerous for us. For this reason, the update of the slogan “Russians go home” in 2026 shows that Hungary does not want to become a Russian colony again. There was even a cataclysmic phone leak in which Orbán pandered to the Russians in a way that communist leader Janos Kadar (1956-1988) would never have thought to do.”
Looking for the answers after the election
Relations between Hungary and Ukraine, already strained by the perceived degradation of the rights of the Hungarian minority in the Ukrainian Carpathians, reached a nadir in 2025. Viktor Orban’s accusations that Ukraine is undermining a pipeline that crosses its territory and carries Russian fuel to both Hungary and Ukraine Slovakia.
Orbán characterized the event as a means of blackmailing Ukraine into withdrawing Hungarian support. A Magyar government is expected to no longer veto financial aid to Ukraine. However, Magyar has stated that he opposes a hasty entry of Ukraine into the European Union. On the other hand, it is likely that a Magyar government will stop vetoing the 20ththe package of European sanctions against Russia, aimed at blocking Russian oil exports.
Of course, a comprehensive policy change will not be easy or quick, as 91% of Hungary’s oil imports come from Russia. Consequently, a full re-opening of the pipeline without obstruction is vital for Hungary.
THE Mark Lawsonsa researcher on Hungarian minority issues at the Institute of Social Theory of the University of Belgrade, explains to Vima: “The pre-election period has been polarized in relation to dilemmas external to Hungary itself, such as the opposition between so-called authoritarian regimes, such as China and Russia, on the one hand, and Western democracies, on the other, with the question of which way the Hungary.
In the post-election period, on the contrary, although it is true that a Magyar government will adapt much more to a European normality, it will at the same time face the same challenges as the Orbán governments. Among the most important are energy resources, which are necessary, but also tensions within Hungarian society itself. Magyar has not responded convincingly to these problems during the campaign period where he relied more on an image of positivity and unity. So he will have to find the real answers now.”
