Eszter KOVÁTS

Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Vienna and a research affiliate of the Central European University

With an unprecedented voter turnout of almost 80 per cent, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has been ousted from power by Péter Magyar and his two-year-old party Tisza. And what is more: Tisza won a constitutional majority.

As of Thursday, 16 April, Tisza has 137 representatives in parliament – four more than needed for a constitutional majority. But since votes cast at embassies and at other places than the domicile are only now being counted, and the results are announced only on Saturday, 18 April, the results could still shift slightly, and Tisza could end up with even more representatives in the national assembly.

In the 199-member parliament, 93 seats are allocated based on votes cast for party lists, on the loser’s and the winner’s compensation, and on postal votes from Hungarians living abroad. The remaining 106 seats are decided in individual constituencies on a first-past-the-post basis. On the list, Tisza won 44 seats with 52 per cent (3.1 million votes), while Fidesz won 43 seats with 39.5 per cent (2.3 million votes). Of the 106 individual constituencies, Tisza has won 93, and Fidesz 13. Thus, altogether, Tisza currently has 137 seats, while Fidesz has 56. The neo-fascist Mi Hazánk party received 340,000 votes (5.8 per cent) and will send six representatives to parliament. The Democratic Coalition (DK), which, in the European Parliament, is affiliated with the S&D group, achieved 1.15 per cent, well short of the 5 per cent parliamentary threshold, while the Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog Party (MKKP) – a former joke party that has become a liberal party – secured only 0.8 per cent.

Government-independent public opinion pollsters, 21 Research Center and Medián, have been forecasting a lead for Tisza since October 2024; and in the weeks leading up to the election, they even indicated a two-thirds majority. Pollsters linked to the government had been reporting a Fidesz lead right up until election day, so Fidesz’s defeat by such a margin exposed them as well. To those voters who get their news from Fidesz-aligned media, the party’s loss might have come as a cold shower.

Perhaps the most surprising moment of election night – at least for opposition voters – was Orbán’s congratulatory call to Magyar and his speech, which clearly acknowledged his defeat. The months leading up to the election were marked by collective hysteria, as numerous theories and – in hindsight – conspiracy theories emerged regarding everything the regime might do to cling to power: citing the Ukrainian threat or possibly false-flag operations, they would postpone the elections; they would change the electoral system at the last minute; they would call off the elections on the day of the vote due to irregularities; citing foreign interference, they would refuse to accept defeat, they would deploy the armed forces, Péter Magyar would fall out of a window, etc. In contrast, with 45 per cent of the votes counted, Viktor Orbán called Péter Magyar to congratulate him, and then, in a brief and unambiguous speech – refraining even from blaming Ukrainian or Brussels interference – acknowledged his defeat.

Is the fact that these horror scenarios did not come to pass due to the fact that Viktor Orbán has a moral line that he will not cross? Or does he have a political line, namely at least a minimalist conception of democracy that recognises the idea of majority rule and popular sovereignty? Or perhaps, did he simply recognise that seeking to preserve his power through repression might have a too unpredictable outcome – especially since, thanks to whistleblowers in the final weeks of the campaign, the public also learned that the police and the army do not stand united behind the ruling party. All this will be the subject of much analysis. If the transfer of power is as smooth as the acknowledgement of defeat, then professional analysts and political scientists may want to engage in some self-reflection.

The playing field was not level; the elections did not take place under fair conditions. The dismantling of the system of checks and balances, the use of state resources – including public media and intelligence agencies – for partisan purposes, the constant smear campaigns and intimidation, 11 years of hate propaganda, documented vote-buying with money and threats and the restriction of freedoms under neo-feudal conditions in numerous regions and subsystems – all these are signs that acknowledging defeat will not retroactively transform the Orbán regime into a liberal democracy.

But what Péter Magyar’s rise and the organisational and political innovations of the past two years have shown is that, through tenacious political work and a shift in public sentiment, it was possible to oust the Orbán regime at the polls. His burst onto the political scene in February 2024 was preceded by the collapse of ‘Orbanomics,’ Orbán’s economic model, and years of recession, inflation and declining real wages. In addition, there was the political and intellectual failure of the former opposition and Fidesz’s moral crisis, which first came to light in the clemency scandal and was followed by others. The independent press revealed that the then-president had given clemency to an accomplice in a child abuse case several months before, and counter-signed by the then justice minister Judit Varga (in February 2024 already the lead candidate for the EP for Fidesz). Following the scandal, both of them resigned. This scandal struck at the very heart of one of Fidesz’s core ideological tenets: its claim to stand for the protection of children. Suddenly, this very self-image was tarnished. It was politically devastating.

And in June 2024, the party of Péter Magyar, Judit Varga’s ex-husband, had already reached 30 per cent in the European Parliament elections. His success required insider knowledge and political intuition, allowing him to skilfully avoid Fidesz’s traps. For example, when Fidesz tried to pull him into the classic culture war-rule of law narrative and into dividing his voter base, by banning the annual Pride demonstration in Budapest, attacking LGBT rights and the right to assembly, he ignored it and continued his rural campaign. What convinced many voters was his focus on the problems of rural Hungary and on material issues, which he was able to link to people’s lived experiences – from healthcare to the emigration of young people –, and to the failures of Viktor Orbán’s misguided policies; as well as the organisational work and civic energy of the so-called ‘Tisza islands’, the ten thousands of active citizens behind the party.

In his victory speech on Sunday evening, Péter Magyar listed those who had already called him: Friedrich Merz, Emmanuel Macron, Manfred Weber, Ursula von der Leyen, Andrej Plenković and Mark Rutte, signalling his direction: towards the mainstream centre-right. During the campaign, he often stated that, unlike Orbán, he does not want to be a stick between the spokes in EU politics, but rather a spoke on the wheel; that is, he wants to move away from Orbán’s foreign policy, which is subordinated to domestic political goals and which treats the EU as an adversary and not an alliance we are part of, and rather play a ‘critical but constructive’ role in the EU. While the frozen €18 billion in EU funds is one of his most important campaign promises and a main source of funding for his pledges, he opposes dismantling the border fence and rejects the EU migration pact, as well as the financial support for Ukraine and its accelerated accession process. He will likely try to strike a middle ground between Orbán’s veto policy and the mainstream centre-right line.

Even before the election, the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) realised that they had lost societal support in the face of a potent candidate who had a real chance to sweep Orbán away, and decided not to run in the elections. The Democratic Coalition made a last-ditch effort, arguing that their voters would not be able to vote against Tisza, thereforethe party’s candidacy would facilitate, rather than hinder, a government change. In other words, potential DK voters would rather abstain than vote for Tisza. Hence, if DK runs, more anti-Orbán votes will be cast. The DK met its fate. In the 14 years prior to Péter Magyar’s emergence, the party of the extremely unpopular former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány held the opposition hostage and trained voters to set aside their values and vote for the anti-Orbán force with the best chance of winning. Gyurcsány did not step down until May 2025, and the new party leader and top candidate, Klára Dobrev, was unable to stem the tide of voters flowing to Tisza. It likely did not help that while the party argued that left-wing values needed to be represented in parliament, their main campaign message was to take away the voting rights of Hungarians living beyond the border. If there is to be a left-wing movement in Hungary again, its leadership will likely not emerge from the ruins of the MSZP and the DK, but rather either through the pluralisation of Tisza’s broad platform or from future protest movements against Tisza. But first, lessons must be learned from the past 16 years, and particularly the last two years. 

Tisza’s main challenges, besides restoring the rule of law, are the budget deficit and the conflicting economic philosophies and contradicting expectations within the party and among its voters. A challenging period lies ahead, but let’s savour this moment for just a second: the Orbán regime is over. And it has been ousted by a democratic election.

Photo credits: Shutterstock/arpasi.bence