How Hungary’s opposition won and what happens next

Alexander Faludy reflects on the landslide election victory for Péter Magyar‘s Tisza party over Viktor Orbán‘s system of ‘illiberal democracy’ in the Hungarian parliamentary elections and analyses what might happen next in Hungary’s relationship with the European Union.

The landslide election victory on 12 April for Hungary’s centre-right Tisza party, led by former Fidesz insider Péter Magyar, surprised analysts. With limited exceptions, the consensus had been that Tisza could hope for a bare majority of parliamentary seats, but not a two thirds constitutional one.

Achieving the latter was, however, essential to have a shot at dismantling Viktor Orbán‘s system of ‘illiberal democracy’. A bare majority, on the other hand, would have left the incoming Tisza government either paralysed, or dependent on unpalatable deals with the extreme-right Mi Hazánk party.

Tisza won the vote in Hungarian geographical constituencies with an 18.5-point lead over Fidesz (55.3% v. 36.7%).

The party can boast 141 seats in the unicameral national assembly, eight more than the 133 needed for a constitutional majority. It represents the largest parliamentary majority in Hungary’s post-1989 democratic history. Fidesz and Mi Hazánk, meanwhile, have a mere 52 seats and 6 seats respectively.

Pessimists have long argued that Fidesz had consolidated power and manipulated Hungary’s electoral system to such an extent that real change could not be brought about through normal electoral means. Rather, the reasoning went, Hungarians would have to wait for ‘regime entropy’ to develop and for Orbán to be pushed out by reformists from inside Fidesz. Such a pattern would echo Hungary’s 1989 transition of power in which ‘reform communists’ were pivotal.

The prediction proved to be only partially correct.

Admittedly, Magyar and several other prominent members of the Tisza leadership, are disillusioned former Fidesz insiders. It became clear in the run-up to the election that Magyar retained discreet friendly contacts inside the governing party, ones willing to leak him sensitive information. This allowed him to anticipate and forestall smear campaigns planned by Fidesz’s propaganda apparatus.

Nevertheless, change has come about through an open electoral victory, not a closed-door palace revolt. This can probably be credited to three interlocking factors: socio-economic reality, Magyar’s personal communications, and the misdirection of Fidesz’s campaign.

Emotive scandals, especially concerning the cover-up of child sexual abuse in public institutions, created openings for Magyar and Tisza to enter public consciousness. More importantly, though, growing discontent with Fidesz had its true roots in political economy.

Problems with corruption and the rule of law failed to cut through as long as general living standards were improving. But, since 2022, this no longer applied thanks to stagnant growth and high inflation. Hungarians have seen living standards decline sharply. This is true relative to their own past experience, and to life in post-communist EU neighbours like Croatia, Romania and Slovakia.

The latter is a sensitive point given that, at the time of Hungary’s EU accession in 2004, the country was considered a regional leader in development. But today there is no amount of Fidesz propaganda that could cover up the underfunding and dysfunctionality of public services, especially in the areas of healthcare, child protection and education.

Magyar worked this groundswell of sentiment effectively via relentless personal appearances across Hungary over the last two years. He was also able to compensate for his lack of access to Fidesz-controlled broadcast media through a large, organic, social media following. His posts were frequently seen by hundreds of thousands in a country of less than ten million. Significantly, unlike the older opposition leaders he was adept at deploying humour and emotion, not just arguments.

Fidesz, meanwhile, chose to fight the election on foreign policy issues without addressing domestic concerns — except for suggesting that things would become even worse should Tisza come to power. The spotlight on Viktor Orbán‘s personal international connections, including the visit of US Vice President J.D. Vance, may have back-fired, consolidating suspicions that the Prime Minister had lost touch with what mattered to voters at home.

Magyar’s remarks at his first press conference as Prime Minister-elect were delivered in front of a wall of Hungarian flags bracketed at each end by that of the EU. This represented a notable departure from practice under Orbán’s far-right Fidesz government and signalled Tisza’s intention to return Hungary to a European path. Clearly this is vital if frozen EU funds are to be released and Hungary returned to economic growth.

We’ve seen now seen the first signs of what this might look like. Asked whether Tisza would end Hungary’s longstanding defiance of an EU court judgment concerning breaches of asylum law (which is costing the country €1m in fines per day) Magyar signalled a break with past policy.

The dispute, he noted, had now cost Hungarians over €1bn which is ‘missing from Hungarian funds for healthcare, education and infrastructure’. EU countries led by allies of Viktor Orbán were able, he noted, to comply with EU asylum law, ‘and yet stop illegal migrants from coming to their countries’. If it was possible for them, it should be possible in Hungary too, he argued.

This will be welcome from an EU perspective. However, there was some domestic messaging too. Magyar made it clear that he would not accept the quota allocation of asylum seekers under the EU Migration Pact, nor make solidarity payments to other countries. Hungary would, however, stay within the Pact’s framework by providing seconded police units to support border control in other EU countries.

A similar accommodation of domestic concerns was evident in Magyar’s stance on Orbán’s recent veto of the €90bn EU loan package for Ukraine, financed through shared borrowing. Magyar said Hungary would not hinder other EU countries from supporting Ukraine by such means through wielding a veto. It would, however, not itself become a party to the common debt.

How effective these compromises will prove in maintaining the support of Magyar’s eclectic voter coalition will be a key question in coming months.

By Alexander Faludy, freelance journalist.