Hungarians elected Orban's former friend as their leader

Peter Magyar, the leader of the opposition Tisza party
Photo:AP

An upstart opposition party in Hungary ousted Prime Minister Viktor Orban after 16 years in a historic election that will redefine the country’s relationship with the European Union, Russia and the US administration of President Donald Trump, Bloomberg writes.

Peter Magyar’s Tisza party was headed for a supermajority in parliament that will allow it to deliver on bold promises to dismantle Orban’s self-styled illiberal system. Tisza had 69% of the parliamentary mandates compared with 28% for Orban’s Fidesz, according to the Election Office in Budapest on Sunday, with 90% of the votes counted.

Orban conceded the election, telling supporters that the result was “painful” for him. He said he had congratulated Magyar on his victory. The forint extended a months-long rally against the euro to rise to the strongest level in three years.

Magyar, a 45-year-old former ruling party insider, galvanized the country over the past two years with his message of change. As results trickled in, drivers honked their horns in celebration along the Danube in Budapest as revelers took to the streets.

Ursula is happy, Trump is unhappy…

Trump repeatedly endorsed Orban and sent Vice President JD Vance to Budapest to campaign for him just days before the vote.

The outcome also marks a defeat for the nationalist camp in Europe for whom Orban had been a trailblazer and the driving force behind its Patriots party, now the third-largest inside the European Parliament.

But it came as a big relief for the EU, which had struggled to overcome Orban’s obstructionism over the years.

“Hungary has chosen Europe,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. “Europe has always chosen Hungary. Together, we are stronger.”

But it’s in Hungary — once a poster child for the transition from communism to market democracy, where Orban is a larger than life political figure — where the impact of Sunday’s elections will be most keenly felt.

Magyar tapped into growing anger over cronyism, stagnant economy and rapidly deteriorating public services to challenge and eventually break the EU’s longest-serving head of government’s stranglehold on power.

Orban has gone from a liberal, anti-communist student leader in the 1980s to become center-right, conservative prime minister for the first time in 1998 at the age of 34. After losing power in 2002, he returned to office in 2010 as a pro-Kremlin nationalist on a mission to eradicate liberal democracy.

Magyar – an ex-Orban’s loyalist

Magyar had campaigned on a pledge to not only oust the MAGA movement’s populist icon but to bring down his system. Much of his momentum now rides on fulfilling that promise — and doing it just got more manageable with Tisza appearing to have surpassed the 133-seat threshold to give it a two-thirds parliamentary majority.

Magyar said Tisza’s parliamentary dominance would make the planned changes “much more peaceful and smooth.”

But he’s also going to have to inherit some of the economic challenges that contributed to Orban’s undoing and were only made worse by the prime minister’s pre-election spending spree, which included lifetime income tax exemptions for mothers and increases in pensions and wages.

The government ran up a cash-flow based deficit of 3.4 trillion forint ($10.6 billion) in the first quarter, a year-to-date record. Magyar will have to take urgent steps to trim the budget to avert Hungary’s sovereign credit rating being cut to junk.

Magyar has said he’ll ask the Orban-allied president, Tamas Sulyok, to shorten the 30-day period until the formation of the new parliament for a swift transition of power. He’s cited concern that the Orban-dominated lame duck legislature could pass laws to hamper his administration.

The opposition leader has vowed to oust Orban’s key loyalists such as the president, top justices, the chief prosecutor and the heads of several state regulators. He also plans to eventually pass a new constitution, change election rules that were widely seen as favoring Fidesz and take public media’s news coverage, which Orban had reduced to a government mouthpiece, off the air.

Those changes are needed to return Hungary to the European mainstream and to liberate its political and economic sphere from Fidesz’s influence, Magyar said on Sunday after he cast his vote.

What Mr. Magyar wants?

Magyar has vowed to introduce a two term limit for prime ministers to prevent Hungary from reverting to authoritarian rule. He’s said that would disqualify Orban, who has served four consecutive and five overall terms, from running in the future for the top government job.

Magyar, who describes himself as a center-right conservative, united liberals and disaffected Fidesz voters like himself under the Tisza umbrella.

He also did what other former opposition parties had failed to do: win over the countryside through relentless campaigning that took him to the smallest of villages, once Fidesz’s stronghold where Tisza made big gains on Sunday.

Magyar had focused on addressing the economic concerns of Hungarians, including a cost-of-living, education and health-care crisis.

Magyar has pledged to improve relations with the EU and key members such as Germany and Poland, while loosening ties with Russia, including by reviewing the Orban government’s expansion of the Paks nuclear plant in a project led by Russia’s Rosatom Corp.

Viktor Orbán

Orbán is gone, but the EU should not rejoice too soon – The new man comes from the same political stable as the old one

The champagne corks will pop in Brussels' European district. Faster and clearer than expected, Viktor Orbán has lost the elections – and congratulated the victorious Péter Magyar, notes ‘Die Weltwoche’ from Switzerland

As befits a gentleman and democrat – and so very different from how the rest of Europe dealt with him.

Donald Trump and his vice president are likely to have given the death blow to his campaign. Or did Orbán really believe that supporting what is arguably the most despised U.S. president right now would help him? A momentous miscalculation.

But the EU will now also fall into this. The joy of the painted pro-European Magyar blinds you to unpleasant truths: the new man is not that pro-European.

Especially not pro-Ukrainian. Magyar has expressed his, to put it bluntly, skepticism about Kiev joining NATO and the EU several times. And he doesn't believe in arms deliveries to Ukraine either.

Unlike in Poland, where Donald Tusk was an ideological counterpoint to the EU-sceptic PiS, Magyar comes from the same political stable as Orbán. And that's why you shouldn't be too happy in Brussels.

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