A remarkable political event just took place in Hungary. Opposition leader Peter Magyar and his Tisza party defied the odds, and long-term incumbent Prime Minister Viktor Orban's blatant attempts at election chicane and media rigging, to win an overwhelming electoral victory, securing a two-thirds majority in the incoming Hungarian parliament. This will allow the new government—if desired—to change the Hungarian constitution and will greatly facilitate a comprehensive sweep of state institutions to eliminate the "state capture" imposed during Orban's 16-year-long rule. This is very good news first and foremost for the Hungarian population but also will have important political implications across Europe and even for the transatlantic relationship.
Orban's defeat was founded first and foremost on Magyar's disciplined and persistent messaging. He essentially focused his campaign on just two topics—the corruption inside the Orban government and Hungary's related, very poor economic performance in recent years. His message, carried to all corners of Hungary in a campaign focused on smaller cities and the rural strongholds of Orban's Fidesz party, evidently resonated with the electorate, as participation surged to nearly 80 percent of eligible voters.
Tisza also benefitted from the voluntary withdrawal of all centrist and left-wing parties from the election campaign, essentially giving Magyar a clear one-on-one contest against Fidesz. In Hungary's traditional European multiparty electoral system, the mass withdrawal of political parties is an unprecedented political event, highlighting the clear political consensus in Hungary on the need to oust Orban at all costs and overcome an election system designed to otherwise favor Fidesz. Magyar is a center-right political leader, placing him in the best position to defeat the right-wing nationalist Orban, and with the implicit political blessing of all left-wing parties in Hungary.
Probably the biggest immediate winner outside Hungary from this election result will be Ukraine, as Kyiv is now set to urgently receive a €90 billion EU loan that until now had been blocked by Orban's veto. A political deal will also soon be struck between the European Commission and the incoming Hungarian government to secure the release of EU budget funds for Hungary, frozen in the recent years by the European Union over concerns about the rule of law and democratic freedoms under Orban's rule. Such a deal will see up to €17 billion—about 8 percent of Hungarian GDP, so a very large fiscal transfer—released to Budapest in return for the incoming government undoing actions and laws implemented under Orban that were incompatible with EU rules. Magyar will, in other words, soon have a lot of money with which to implement his government's new economic policies.
Orban's defeat also directly severs the most direct political and organizational link between European right-wing forces and US president Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) movement. MAGA—as personified by US vice president JD Vance's last-minute visit to support Orban's election campaign—has invested significant resources in its Hungarian connection.
Magyar can be expected to maintain tough immigration policies and favor a gradual merit-based Ukrainian accession to the European Union—both mainstream political positions in Europe today. So, while Orban's political demise will not mean dramatic policy reversals in Hungary on these important issues, his defeat nonetheless narrows the policy paths available for other right-wing political contenders in coming European elections.
Orban's political platform was one of noisy right-wing populism founded on a confrontational approach to most EU policies. This platform has now been shown to result in poor economic outcomes and has hence been revealed as politically unsuccessful. Orban's ouster makes the more pragmatic right-wing leadership of Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni—which endorses standard EU positions on fiscal policy and Ukraine, while remaining decisively far right on other policy areas—a much more attractive policy platform for incoming right-wing European leaders. Hungary's election outcome will therefore likely play a direct role in shaping the political program of France's Marine Le Pen's National Rally (RN) party in next year's French elections and have the same effect in other upcoming European elections.
Orban's decisive defeat will leave a political trail across the entire European Union.
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