Hungary for change

THERE has understandably been widespread rejoicing over the comeuppance of Viktor Orbán in last Sunday’s Hungarian elections. For the past 16 years, he has served as something of a role model for fascist-adjacent political forces across Europe and far beyond.

Amid indications that his far-right Fidesz party might be ousted after four terms of parliamentary supermajorities that enabled its leader to pursue his reprehensible agenda, ideological allies from across the continent and even Latin America descen­ded on Budapest to bolster their beleaguered idol’s chances for a fifth term. They were followed by Donald Trump’s emissaries Marco Rubio and J.D. Vance. Benjamin Netanyahu has hitherto found a warm welcome in Budapest, and Hungary has stood out among EU states as an unabashed member of the Vladimir Putin fan club.

It’s unclear whether any of the interventions had much effect, salutary or otherwise, on Orbán’s prospects. As the opinion polls suggested, Hungarian voters seemed determined to deliver their leader his marching orders. The conduit, somewhat ironically, was Péter Magyar, an Orbán loyalist until two years ago who fled Fidesz during a scandal over presidential protection for a serial child abuser. There are shades here of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

Among those forced to step down in 2024 was the president, Katalin Novák; a bishop who headed the Hungarian Reformed Church; and Judit Varga, the justice minister — recently divorced from Magyar. The latter used an audio recording of his ex-wife describing the levels of government corruption to gain a political foothold with his new party, Tisza.

Magyar’s majority may enable him to reverse some of the damage.

Tisza appears to have thrived on justifiable criticisms of cronyism and corruption among the Fidesz elite, but there are reasonable doubts about exactly how different a chip off the old block will turn out to be from its progenitor. There are hopes, but no guarantees, that Magyar will at least begin demolishing the most illiberal aspects of his predecessor’s legacy. He has largely been silent on the existing order’s derision for LGBTQ rights, his stance on immigration suggests the barbed wire on the Serbian border will remain in place, and while he has promised to endorse the EU’s €90 billion loan for Kyiv, hitherto held up by Hungary, it’s uncertain to what extent Magyar might embrace the Ukrainian cause.

His huge majority in the next parliament will potentially enable him to roll back at least some of the damage Orbán and Fidesz have wreaked since 2010. But the extent to which Magyar might wish to go down that route is unclear, given he was complicit in some of the worst outrages. The size of his triumph can partly be attributed to the fact that left and liberal organisations stayed out of the election to avoid splitting the opposition vote, and that a substantial proportion of voters saw him not so much as a prospective saviour as a means of dislodging the obnoxious incumbent.

The delight over the result — from Kyiv to Brussels and London — is mainly based on the impression that Magyar is unlikely to turn into a Putin/ Trump stooge. The slogan ‘Russians go home’ (with its echoes of 1956) was frequently chanted at his rallies. But Russia remains the key source of Hungary’s energy imports and that’s unlikely to change in a hurry.

With its population of less than 10 million and its 1.1 per cent contribution to the EU’s GDP, Hungary could hardly be seen as a particularly consequential European nation. Orbán propelled it to the forefront of global attention as a rabid Christian nationalist, overtly Islamophobic and slightly more subtly antisemitic, who was able to posture not only as a poster boy for the Euro­pean far right but also as a forerunner of political tre­­­­­­nds from the US to Brazil and beyond. Steve Ban­­non has des­c­ribed him as “Tru­­mp before Trump”, while Australia’s worst ex-prime minister, Tony Abbott, has more accurately eulogised him as “Trump with brains”.

Orbán’s likely departure from the global stage might be a blow to what is sometimes referred to as the ‘reactionary international’, and hence good riddance. But the far right making way for marginally less extreme reactionary forces offers little scope for complacency. With the commendable exception of Spain, Europe is littered with regimes that are wary of Trump yet barely bothered by the genocide in Palestine, and determined to do all they can to shut down criticism of the perpetrator. Israel emerged almost 80 years ago from the ashes of a conflict ostensibly focused on burying European fascism. Today it serves as a bellwether for the creeping return of that ideology.

Europe will be decidedly better off minus the malign and omnipresent silhouette of Orbán, but it would probably be a mistake to interpret the welcome breeze blowing through Hungary as the precursor of a wind of change.

mahir.dawn@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, April 15th, 2026

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