The defeat of Viktor Orbán means Hungary will have a change in government for the first time since 2010.
Although polls had suggested a decisive victory for the opposition Tisza party, many of its supporters refused to allow themselves to imagine what victory might feel like. After 16 years of rule by Orbán’s illiberal Fidesz party, the electoral playing field had been so tilted against his opponents that some questioned whether an alternative was possible.
So when Orbán conceded defeat to his opponent, Péter Magyar, it felt to some like regime change. András Petöcz, a writer and poet, said the feeling reminded him of being in Budapest during the collapse of the Soviet Union.
“I was 30 years old when the Communist regime ended. It’s the same feeling – the same,” he told CNN from the banks of the Danube, where thousands of Tisza supporters had gathered to hear the results.
Magyar, the incoming prime minister, told the crowd: “Together, we replaced the Orbán regime. Together, we liberated Hungary. We took our country back.”
Although much remains unclear – from the size of Tisza’s majority in parliament to how it will begin the work of unpicking the system Fidesz built – Orbán’s loss has shown the cul-de-sac of populism. His defeat offers lessons for those who would seek to emulate him, and for those who are glad to see him gone.
The first lesson is that it’s hard to internationalize nationalism. Having governed so long as a champion of national sovereignty – pledging to defend Hungary from the alleged threats of the European Union and liberal ideology – Orbán’s campaign in the end lent heavily on support from his powerful international backers in the United States and Russia.
Dispatched to Budapest last week to help the Trump administration’s closest ally in Europe, Vice President JD Vance said he was willing to help Orbán “as much as I possibly can.” President Donald Trump went further. “GET OUT AND VOTE FOR VIKTOR ORBÁN,” he blasted on Truth Social. “He is a true friend, fighter, and WINNER.”
The Trump administration’s overtures did not work. While some Hungarians – packed into an event hall in Budapest to hear Vance speak on Tuesday – were doubtless flattered by the attention of a superpower, and grateful to the prime minister who won it, there is something contradictory about imagining that people will vote for a nationalist politician because a foreign power told them to do so.
Ahead of Orbán’s defeat, Ivan Krastev, a Bulgarian political scientist who has known Orbán since the 1990s, told CNN: “The irony is that if he’s going to lose, he’s going to lose like a globalist.” In calling on his powerful friends abroad, Orbán was “doing everything that you want very strongly internationalist political leaders to do.”
One reason that Orbán’s campaign focused so heavily on foreign policy is that his domestic record was so poor. This is another lesson of his defeat: Populism is about winning the day, the week, the news cycle. To function, this one-battle-after-another mode of governance needs a steady stream of enemies. Orbán found plenty: NGOs, liberal universities, George Soros, the LGBTQ movement, the European Union.
But eventually you run out of dragons to slay. Much of Orbán’s campaign vilified neighboring Ukraine. Budapest is plastered with posters of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky. Some read: “Danger!” Others read: “Don’t let him have the last laugh.”
Without a thriving economy, or a well-run healthcare system, or other policy achievements to point to, Orbán’s campaign instead aimed to scare Hungarians into voting for Fidesz by posing as the “safe choice” to protect Hungary from threats allegedly posed by Ukraine. “He is always talking about sovereignty, but to believe that the major threat to Hungarian sovereignty in Ukraine (became) comical,” said Krastev.
To counter Orbán’s vague warnings of danger from abroad, Magyar simply had to point to his record at home – with which Hungarians were less than impressed.
For those who seek to defeat populists, Orbán’s defeat also offers lessons. Despite his overwhelming victory, many leftist and liberal Hungarians are less than enamored by Magyar, a former Fidesz insider who remains deeply conservative.
Nonetheless, Hungarians rallied around Magyar, correctly judging him to be their best electoral chance of defeating Orbán. Péter Krekó, a political scientist who runs Political Capital, a think-tank in Budapest, told CNN that Hungary’s more liberal voters did not allow the perfect to become the enemy of the good.
In a victory speech opposite Hungary’s parliament, Magyar told his supporters he was clear about the challenges ahead. He called on Orbán to act as a “caretaker,” and not to obstruct the work of the incoming government.
But to his supporters, whether Tisza can unpick the Orbánist model and govern effectively felt like a question for another night.
“It would be a welcome plot twist if Hungary went from a model of illiberalism, post-truth and authoritarianism in the western world to a model of democratic change,” said Krekó. We will see.
