Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban salutes to supporters at the Balna centre in Budapest during the general election in Hungary. Photo / Attila Kisbenek, AFP
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban conceded defeat today in a major election loss that will reverberate in Washington and Moscow.
It brings an end to the 16-year rule of a self-proclaimed champion of illiberal Christian democracy who is a darling of MAGA-aligned American conservatives, an ally of the Kremlin and a proud antagonist of European Union leaders in Brussels.
Orban, 62, who has governed Hungary with increasing authoritarianism since 2010, and his Fidesz Party were ousted by Peter Magyar, 45, a centre-right, socially conservative member of the European Parliament, and his Tisza Party - in what was arguably the country’s most consequential vote since the end of the communist era.
United States Vice-President JD Vance visited Hungary last week to campaign for Orban.
Magyar posted on Facebook: “Viktor Orban just called me on the phone and congratulated us on our victory”.
Orban conceded defeat in a short speech at his campaign headquarters, calling the election result “clear.”
With nearly 85% of the vote counted, Magyar’s party looked set for a landslide victory, on course to claim 138 seats in the 199-seat parliament, five more than the 133 needed for a two-thirds constitutional majority. Orban’s party was on track to win 54.
In his concession speech, Orban thanked the two and a half million voters who backed his Fidesz party and said it now needs to focus on rebuilding their communities.
“We never give up, this is one thing people know about us, we never give up,” he said. “The days ahead of us are for us to heal our wounds.”
On the bank of the Danube river, a crowd of Tisza supporters erupted in joy as Orban acknowledged what he called a painful defeat.
Hungarians turned out in record numbers for the historic vote. By 6.30pm, half an hour before polls closed, turnout was at nearly 78%, well above the 68% from four years ago.
Analysts predicted that the record turnout could favour Magyar, signalling excitement about voting for a fresh approach.
Congratulatory messages for Magyar poured in from mainstream European political leaders, for whom Orban was often a major frustration as he wielded his country’s veto power to block key EU initiatives, including most recently a €90 billion loan for Ukraine.
Orban’s political director, Balazs Orban, had alleged earlier today that Magyar’s Tisza Party was involved in vote-buying and intimidation, potentially laying the groundwork to contest the results.
For all the international interest and allegations of foreign interference from multiple actors, Hungarian voters seemed focused primarily on domestic problems, including a weak economy and underfunded healthcare and education, allegations of corruption, and fatigue with a leader who has served 16 years consecutively and had little new to offer voters to justify another four-year term.
“Their biggest mistake was lack of innovation - this is the third big election Fidesz was running on basically the same message: supporting families and trying to protect Hungary from the war,” said Nora Schultz, an independent Hungarian political scientist. “And people seem to want something new.”
Large crowds of Tisza supporters gathered across the river from Budapest’s ornate parliament building in anticipation of results.
As people streamed up from the subway, they sporadically chanted “Arad Tisza”, roughly translating to “Tisza rising”.
The crowd was full of young people, many first-time voters, who said Magyar earned their support by crisscrossing the country and addressing a wide range of domestic problems.
“The thing that won me over was the whole trailing around the country and actually answering to the people and saying what actually matters,” said Dora Fricsfalusi, 19.
“Human rights, family rights and children’s rights are such a big important question, but Fidesz was not able to answer them.”
This year’s race was viewed as one of the dirtiest in Hungarian history.
Budapest is plastered with posters depicting Magyar as a two-faced puppet of Brussels and Kyiv, while damaging material about the Orban Government’s ties to Russia has filled the independent press in recent weeks.
Orban has been a leading critic of immigration. He has also been a vocal critic of military and economic aid to Ukraine and often sought to block EU sanctions against Russia.
In the election, Orban has tried to stoke fears that Magyar would pull Hungary into Russia’s war in support of Ukraine.
Magyar ran on a platform largely focused on domestic issues, accusing Orban of mismanaging Hungary’s weak economy and railing against a government procurement system that he says has enriched Orban’s family members and political allies.
Trump offered full-throttle support to Orban, including a video message endorsing him for re-election that was broadcast on the morning of the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) annual meeting in the Hungarian capital.
Vance’s two-day visit to Hungary put a spotlight on the shared ideology and rhetoric between Orban and the US MAGA movement as both men criticised the EU in Brussels, migration and Ukraine.
In speeches, Vance decried what he called “disgraceful” foreign interference in the election by the EU, while declaring that he wanted to “help as much as I can possibly help” to get Orban re-elected.
The US President’s son Donald Trump jnr had called on “friends in Hungary” to vote for Orban: “We hope you will vote for independent thinking and for someone who stands for Hungary First,” he posted on X.
“We hope you will vote for my father’s friend and ally.”
Orban’s concession marked a threshold moment in Brussels, where the Hungarian leader has made an art form of obstructing EU policies, which often require unanimous approval of the bloc’s 27 member nations.
His defeat also showed limits to the global reach of Trump’s political movement. The US President is unpopular in Europe, where even his ideological allies oppose the war in Iran and were disturbed by his threats to seize Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark.
Orban cast the election as the fight for “the soul of the West,” and Vance called the US and Hungary representatives of “the defence of Western civilisation”.
Hungary under Orban plays an outsize role in MAGA lore and ideology. Although Hungary trails behind most EU countries economically, Orban has become an icon for populist, right-wing conservatives worldwide.
With Orban’s loss, Russia is set to lose one of its most valuable assets in Europe: a friendly government inside the EU capable of blocking sanctions and watering down resolutions, particularly on Ukraine aid and sanctions.
Orban has leveraged his veto power to squeeze exemptions out of the EU and keep its decision-making in gridlock, while securing cheap Russian energy.
Similarly to the MAGA movement, Orban’s fall is also poised to deal the Kremlin an ideological blow, as he has offered living proof that “illiberal democracy” can take root, win elections and endure within the EU.
Analysts said that voters were unlikely to be swayed by the allegations, trumpeted by Vance and Orban, that Ukraine and Brussels sought to influence the election.
“I don’t see it as a game-changer,” said Peter Kreko, director of Political Capital, an independent think-tank in Budapest. “It could maybe bring a bit more support among undecided voters, but I’m not entirely convinced, given how low an importance foreign policy seems to have for the Hungarian public at the moment.”
Kreko added: “Voters are much more focused on domestic issues: corruption, healthcare, economy”.
Orban, who first served as prime minister from 1998 to 2002, returned to the top leadership in 2010 and has won three consecutive elections since. Critics say he has dismantled democratic institutions and restricted press freedoms, asserting heavy-handed state control over much of Hungary’s news media.
Orban appeared unusually tired yesterday as he delivered a campaign speech the day before the election, drawing concern from some Fidesz supporters.
In his speech, Orban repeated his criticism of European aid to Ukraine, telling voters that Tisza would direct Hungarian money to Kyiv. Orban also repeated his attacks on Volodymyr Zelensky, alleging that the Ukrainian President wanted to cause chaos and install “a pro-Ukrainian government” in Budapest.
A recent survey by Median, a Hungarian agency that accurately predicted Fidesz’s two-thirds majority in the 2022 national election, showed Tisza with 58% compared with 33% for Fidesz. Other local pollsters showed Tisza running ahead of Fidesz by smaller, but still significant, margins.
Over 16 years, Orban has reshaped the country’s political system to favour himself and Fidesz, rewriting the constitution and redrawing parliamentary districts to favour the government party.
The country’s president, who must approve election results and formally issue a mandate to form the next government, is an Orban ally, as are the supreme court, the prosecutor’s office and the constitutional court. Any party in power also needs a two-thirds majority in parliament - 133 of 199 seats - to push through significant changes.
While Orban shared a stage with Vance, Magyar toured small towns and villages - a contrast that captured the vastly different campaign styles of the top contenders.
Orban has relied on orchestrated rallies and the vast media control he has built over 16 years, with about 70% of outlets linked to Fidesz or allies of the prime minister.
Magyar, a former supporter of Orban and longtime member of Fidesz, rose to prominence in 2024 and built a substantial base of support by relentlessly touring the country - delivering up to seven speeches a day.
Magyar also built an active social media presence, highlighting dilapidated infrastructure, such as the run-down rail system, and the lack of basic goods like toilet paper in hospitals.
Magyar, a Budapest native, comes from a politically connected family. His great-uncle was president of Hungary in the early 2000s, and his mother worked in the judiciary.
In a recent podcast, Magyar recalled having a poster of Orban on his childhood bedroom wall, back when Orban first rose to power on anti-communist rhetoric and calls for a break from Russia.
Magyar joined Fidesz while he was in university and married one of the party’s rising stars, Judit Varga, who later became Hungary’s justice minister.
Magyar broke with the party in 2024, after revelations that Orban’s government, which had spent years portraying itself as a defender of Christian values and traditional families, had pardoned a man convicted of helping to cover up a sexual abuse scandal at a children’s home. Varga - by then Magyar’s ex-wife - resigned, as did Hungary’s president at the time.
“After that scandal, he was strongly criticising Fidesz and managed to create sort of a social movement, so Tisza was not a political project at the very beginning,” said Ilona Gizinska, a Hungarian policy expert with the Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW) in Warsaw.
“The Hungarian opposition of previous years was very much concentrated in Budapest and not the smaller villages - and this is something that Peter Magyar did for the first time in years.”
Magyar took over an existing party, Tisza - the name forms an acronym that stands for “Respect and Freedom” - and gradually turned into a political movement.
Unlike progressive opponents on the left, whom Orban could attack ideologically, Magyar has posed a formidable challenge as a fellow conservative and former Fidesz insider.
“Magyar gave people shocked by the pardon scandal a way to say: ‘I was a Fidesz voter before, I was part of the regime in some way, and it’s okay if you were before, and it’s okay for this moment to be the time when you change,’” Schultz said.
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