One of the year’s most consequential elections is being held overnight Australian time in Hungary, where Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party are fighting to remain in power after 16 years in office. His rival is Péter Magyar of the Tisza party, a former government insider who held senior roles in state-owned companies but broke with Fidesz two years ago amid a scandal over presidential pardons. Both contenders are identified with the political right, but Magyar’s promise of a reorientation toward a pro-NATO and European Union line stands in contrast to Orbán, whose regime has been distinguished in recent years by indulgence towards Vladimir Putin and his war on Ukraine, together with an wide-ranging illiberalism that has won the favour of the Donald Trump and a visit from J.D. Vance this week to endorse his campaign.
The manifestations of the latter include a skewing of electoral laws in Fidesz’s favour, including by allowing ethnic Hungarians in neighbouring countries to vote and letting them do so by post, of which at least 90% are cast for Fidesz, boosting them by a couple of percentage points in terms of national vote share. The Economist’s modelling suggests Tisza would need to outpoll Fidesz by 4.3% to have a better than even chance of securing a parliamentary majority, whereas Fidesz would need to trail by more than 2.0% to be a better than even chance of going into minority. The changes to the constitution, electoral rules, the judiciary and media regulation overseen by Orbán’s regime have required a two-thirds majority.
This post is going live just as polls close at 3am eastern Australian time, and the broad outline of the result seems likely to be clear by the time most of you read this. Polling has been radically variable depending on whether the pollster in question has been aligned with Fidesz: according to tracking conducted by The Economist, such polling has had Fidesz and its allies six or seven points ahead, whereas opposition-aligned or neutral polling has given Tisza a double-digit lead. What is already clear at the time of writing is that turnout is well up on 2022: 38% had voted as of 11am local time, with polls closing at 7pm, as compared with 26% at the same point in 2022.
Let’s goooooooo!!! Magyar won. The last stronghold of right-wing populism in the EU is now gone.
Professor Tim Wilson’s comments
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrF2ymCyHIY
Interesting that MAGA got so involved when it was clear the writing was on the wall for Orban.
It did take a combined effort however, with the vast majority of opposition parties choosing not to stand to give Tisza a chance. That won’t happen next time if Magyar does not deliver political reform.
Well, to be to the left of Orban doesn’t mean this guy is really any kind of left winger……. but hopefully he is NOT a Trump or Putin sycophant and will be more inclined to actually be part of the EU.
Yup, a good day for democracy and a good signal for the US going into November. Authoritarian arse-holes can be chucked out if enough people turn out to do it.
I was concerned that the pre-election polling data was a mix of Fidesz-aligned and Tisza-aligned, and the actual election would be very close.
Turns out it was a mix of Fidesz-aligned and Reality-aligned. Reality won. 🙂
B. S. Fairman, Monday, April 13, 2026 at 8:45 am:
Good point, as it relates to how translatable Magyar’s defeat of Orbán might be in other countries. In the UK especially, the inability of Starmer’s Labour to rally opponents of Farage makes such a translation very difficult to imagine there right now.
In terms of Hungary itself, though, Magyar needs no extra prompting to rectify the institutional damage Orbán has wrought over the past 16 years – they are completely stacked Fidesz’s way as they are. This is why it was essential that Tisza get over the 133 seat supermajority. I would be gobsmacked if Magyar slow walked or shelved reforms to Hungary’s government, legal and civil society institutions.
I also think that, once civil society is full freed up again, Fidesz’s name will be mud so deeply and for so long that Fidesz will go the way it looks like the Coalition in Australia is going: 2nd best party in Parliament, but overtaken by other parties in terms of standing in the opinion polls. Those parties may have sat out 2026 to give Tisza a clear run to oust Orbán, but now he’s gone (and with all his corrupt regime-reinforcing apparatus being dismantled, hopefully very soon), several more flowers can pop out and bloom, so to speak.
DPR of CBR, Monday, April 13, 2026 at 9:10 am:
Adding my own 🙂 to that!
imacca – He is however pro-EU and pro-Nato. He is not likely to be the roadblock that Orban had become in International issues.
Domestically, I don’t expect pride parades in Budapest but I expect more press freedom.
Hopefully Hungary can at the least not be a block on European help for Ukraine. Dont know whether they might actively help, but that is of less consequence than just not getting in the way.
Maybe now the EU and European NATO countries can now slowly, but decisively tip the scales in Ukraines favour……Who knows, but an end the the war and the ascension of Ukraine to EU membership might also tip the scales in Europes favour vis a vie Trumps America.
Orban gone, Putin defeated, Trump on the back foot…..big assumptions and guesses I know, but this election does seem to have some heft inherent in it doesnt it?
B.S Fairman – I agree with you here. I will add that nobody in Ukraine is now expecting billions of euros from Budapest or anything like that. There is actually very little appetite in Hungary to support Ukraine out of their own pockets, and Peter Magyar will respect that public opinion. But at least Magyar will lift Orbán’s blocks on the €90 billion EU loan (coming from the EU countries except Hungary, Slovakia and Czechia) and the 20th sanctions package, and will stop confecting false issues with Ukraine. That will be enough for Ukraine – unless Slovakian PM Robert Fico becomes fully the ‘next Orbán’ from Putin’s perspective.
The Albonator, Monday, April 13, 2026 at 9:15 am
The Albanator – I have exactly these same hopes as you. And I agree this was a very consequential election – perhaps the most consequential in Central Europe since the fall of the Berlin Wall? Orbán was a long way down the path of turning Hungary into a puppet state of Putin’s Russia, and this would have been absolute poison for the EU and for NATO, regardless of developments across the Atlantic. Now, this can be undone.
European leaders certainly sound relieved at the result.
I am pleased about this outcome for Ukraines’ prospects….but also for yourself Newy boy….Ukraines most staunch advocate on PB. I read all the updates on the war that you provide
Honest Bastard says:
Monday, April 13, 2026 at 5:31 am
You’re being quite voluble William. Perhaps you’d now like to provide a rationale for your use of the word ‘regime’ above?
There are numerous contemporary examples of the use of the term. I’m thinking of the USA, Israel, Russia, Belarus, North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, China, Afghanistan, Myanmar. India and Pakistan are in the heats too. There are many others. And there are secondary systems: Texas, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Arkansas come to mind.
Perhaps you’d like to add this country to the shameful list of outlaw and/or rogue states.
“Zelensky congratulates Magyar on election victory, says Kyiv ready to ‘develop cooperation’ with Hungary”
https://kyivindependent.com/zelensky-congratulates-magyar-on-election-victory-says-kyiv-ready-to-deepen-cooperation-with-hungary/
From President Zelenskyy’s official Telegram account:
https://t.me/V_Zelenskiy_official/18633
(Translated from Ukrainian)
Long-serving Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban has been ousted in a stunning election rout by a man with a short temper who until a few years ago had been a loyal party member.
After Mr Orban conceded defeat, a triumphant Peter Magyar told supporters: “Together we liberated Hungary and got rid of the Orban regime.”
Mr Magyar and his centre-right party Tisza were predicted to win a historic two-thirds majority, after a record 78 per cent turnout of Hungarians mobilised to vote for a closer relationship to the European Union and promises of prosperity.
Mr Magyar said his victory gave him a strong mandate to say yes to Europe, yes to a free Hungary and yes to putting the country in order.
He said the vote would be remembered alongside other historic “moments of grace” because the victory occurred “against full headwinds” and a multi-million-euro smear campaign.
“This is the victory of freedom over oppression, the victory of truth over lies, let this be the victory of all Hungarians …. Hungary is strong again,’’ he said, adding: “love always wins.”
He called on the heads of the judiciary, the chief prosecutor, the media authority and the competition office to resign, saying Hungary’s independent institutions had been captured over the past 16 years of Mr Orban’s rule.
“With the two-thirds majority allowing us to amend the constitution, we will restore the system of checks and balances,’’ he said.
“We will join the European Public Prosecutor’s Office and guarantee the democratic functioning of our country. We will never again allow anyone to hold free Hungary captive or to abandon it.”
He promised that Hungary would be “a strong ally in the European Union and NATO again”.
Mr Orban earlier conceded defeat, telling supporters: “The result of the election is clear and painful.”
Mr Orban, who has been in power for 16 years, insisted he would remain in politics, saying: “No matter how it turns out, we will serve our country and the Hungarian nation even from the opposition.” He added: “Our job now is to unite our communities.”
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/orban-ousted-in-stunning-hungary-election-defeat/news-story/e47a5a07dcc9ca1b2fae5739811a3283?amp
I guess Orban is not a total Trump clone, as he conceded defeat.
One thinks so little of MAGA type leaders that conceding defeat in a democracy is now a virtue, once it was a given.
Newy Boy – Robert Fico is a different fish kettle. He is in bizarre coalition of theorical left-wing parties with a nationalist bent and true right-wing Ultranationalists. They are also due for an election next year and the polls suggest that those parties are in deep trouble.
Fantastic and very clear result. Feel very happy for the Hungarian people.
Thought you meant some other Prof T Wilson…
Kos Samaras’ take on today’s election result in Hungary.
Link: https://x.com/KosSamaras/status/2043440404071415920?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
nadia, Monday, April 13, 2026 at 12:59 pm:
nadia, this is an okay take from Kos, but he did seem to completely miss one of the most obvious and stark differences between Magyar and Orban: pro-Europe versus pro-Russia. One of the major chants at Tisza rallies was “Ruszkik, haza!” (“Russians, go home!”)
By the way, this was a quite neat way in which Magyar impaled Orban on his own ‘Hungarian nationalist’ petard. Nobody truly standing up for Hungary would ever be that servile to Moscow – as Magyar constantly reminded voters. Those leaks about the fawning communications between Orban and his Foreign Minister with their Russian counterparts were fatal to Fidesz, IMO.
Also, Orban did himself absolutely no favours by focusing almost his entire campaign on a bemusing effort to demonise Ukraine as some sort of ‘threat’ to Hungary. This did two things:
1. Told Hungarian voters he was simply not interested in addressing their domestic concerns; and
2. Dragged the focus back onto Hungary’s relations with Russia, underscoring the point about his distinctly ‘un-nationalist’ servility to Moscow.
Thanks newy. I stick with the motherhood statement of “the voters always get it right”, which they def have on this occasion. Cheers for commentary too on all this, as well as Eastern Europe in general.
I have to say, you’ve been pretty much spot-on this past year or so with regard to where the general European people’s sentiment lies with regard to Russia & their Ukraine invasion.
This is wonderful. After 16 years, Orban has been trounced.
So…….. only 10 more years of Trump?
I love it when wounded animals are backed into a corner, they almost never lash out.
In all seriousness ha-ha Orban, suck eggs. He has to be one of the oldest “modern” far-right populists in the game, I am struggling to think of others, even Geert Wilders flamed out before him. I think Pauline has been doing it the longest now. The new government doesn’t seem that inspiring but I generally agree with Kos’ take, he adapted the same tactics that has helped the left in the UK and EU. I hope Ukraine gets the aid package now.
As for Ukraine joining the EU, I don’t know if Hungary will change their position on it, but it’s also hard to call this early. Ukraine was already a troubled candidate economically before the war but the investment required will be huge. The bankers at the IMF and in Germany may be licking their lips at the prospect but it might be a hard sell for more financially dependent countries of the EU.
The 1956 Revolution was held in very high regard between 1989 and 2010 – “Russians go home” was the chant in that uprising. During Orban’s rule the “myth” had been downplayed but it was still in the national psychic.
The previous election had happened just after the Invasion of Ukraine and Orban’s pro-Russian stance had not been much of an issue then. As the war continued it did become an issue. That combined with the paedophile pardons and other scandals were Orban’s undoing.
There is a four week lame duck period now. Watch for the cash to flow out of the country with the corrupt officials heading for the door.
Bean, Monday, April 13, 2026 at 2:16 pm:
Like Orban, Magyar opposes ‘fast track’ EU membership for Ukraine, and still expects Ukraine to implement the sort of concessions to the ethnic Hungarian minority in Zakarpattia Oblast in far western Ukraine which Orban was demanding, before he will agree to any EU accession. This is very much in line with majority public opinion in Hungary. Ukraine understands this, but is hopeful that discussions on these matters can at least now proceed in good faith, unlike the case with Orban.
The main benefit for Ukraine is that Magyar will not see any political upside in thumbing his nose at the EU on matters like the €90 billion EU loan (which Hungary is not expected to contribute to anyway) or the 20th sanctions package against Russia. Hungary might not be rushing to Ukraine’s help any time soon under Magyar, but at least now they will probably stop standing in the way of other EU countries helping.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/hungary-elections-2026-live-results-orban-magyar-b2956329.html
Elon, it’s 2026, not 2016. You need to keep up.
Apologies if this seems off topic but would someone please explain to me the difference between Hungary’s voting system and New Zealand’s mixed member proportional system?
Both systems have similarities. They use a mix of single member districts and proportional bloc list seats to determine the composition of their parliament. Additionally districts are decided using fptp and get first dibs in filling a party’s quota, with list seats filling in the rest of the quota if a party is unable to win a sufficient amount of districts.
However, there seems to be a difference between these electoral systems that I can’t really put my finger on…
From what I can work out, the Hungarian system involves essentially separate elections for the constituency seats and the list seats.
Under the New Zealand model, the list seats are allocated to ensure a party’s proportionate share of total seats equates to its share of the votes. This creates a potential for overhang seats, where the number of constituency seats a party wins is greater than it’s proportionate share of the vote would entitle it to – it gets to keep the “overhang”. As a result the number of seats in the NZ Parliament is not absolutely fixed and I think there have been 3 NZ elections so far in which there were overhang seats.
There’s 93 party list seats and 106 constituency seats. The latter (which Fidesz got to gerrymander) obviously favour major parties – they went 87-19 to Fidesz in 2022, and have just flipped to 93-13 to Tisza.
The party list seats don’t seem proportional, either. I’m not sure how 53.07%, 38.43%, 5.83% (for the three parties that won seats) becomes 45-42-6 – should be more like 51-37-5 (from this cool little d’Hondt calculator I found). Wikipedia has this to say:
So… whatever that means? It’s been a long day. This sounds like it was designed by “wasted vote guy” off Twitter (who got a whole article devoted to his wingnuttery by Kevin Bonham here).
If in some constituency seat, Tisza got 500 votes, Fidesz got 400 and Homeland 100, then the two losing parties get their votes thrown into the proportional pile (despite there being a separate vote for that?!), along with 99 from Tisza because that’s how much they beat Fidesz by. Seems designed to skew the proportional vote away from parties that win a lot of seats with a narrow majority.
I think I might understand this electoral system better if I was more drunk. Pass the palinka.
Bird of paradox says:
Monday, April 13, 2026 at 7:52 pm
With variable thresholds except for ethnic minority party representation. This system is special indeed. I hope you left some palinka for me 🙂
Surely I can’t be the first to point out that with a name like “Péter Magyar” is really not that far off from “Bob Hungary”.
New Zealand had a PM named Bill English not that long ago.
I don’t have any palinka, but I’m curious now. There’s probably two or three places in Perth that sell the stuff, so I might have to go on a mission next day off work. Most of the time when I see that sort of stuff, it’s homemade – old blokes up in the hills who make their own grappa / rakia / etc.
Bird of paradoxsays:
Monday, April 13, 2026 at 9:47 pm
New Zealand had a PM named Bill English not that long ago.
I don’t have any palinka, but I’m curious now. There’s probably two or three places in Perth that sell the stuff, so I might have to go on a mission next day off work. Most of the time when I see that sort of stuff, it’s homemade – old blokes up in the hills who make their own grappa / rakia / etc.
__________________
There is usually a langos truck doing the rounds at the various street markets in Perth – they could point you in the right direction.
Charlie’s in outer Morley is probably also a safe bet.
@sprocket_ Why can’t we just have this type of political meme these days instead of the alt-right wojak shit that we have right now. At least in the old days nothing had a hidden agenda, and it use to literally just be poking fun at the situation of that day.
Cheers, I might drop into Charlie’s next time I’m up in that part of the world. Apart from that, Re Store in Leederville, Devine in Inglewood and Mane in Belmont often have stuff like that.
A sad day for Hungary and for the world. But they can survive one term of non-Fidesz, just like US survived one term of Biden.
@Timmy at 11:22pm
Yeah, just give it 4 years and it’ll be back to Fidesz pardoning pedophiles again, sure.
Honest Bastard, Monday, April 13, 2026 at 4:26 am:
‘Honest’ Bastard, it seems you have a bone to pick not only with William, but with the newly elected Prime Minister of Hungary himself, Peter Magyar:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/apr/13/hungary-peter-magyar-viktor-orban-trump-russia-ukraine-iran-eu-europe-latest-news-updates?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with%3Ablock-69dcdb438f0823a7954da64c#block-69dcdb438f0823a7954da64c
HB, you are out of step with the Hungarian people themselves in characterising the appalling REGIME of Loser Orban.
Timmy, Monday, April 13, 2026 at 11:22 pm:
A sad day only for the Russkiy Mir, mate. A busy day for Budapest’s shredding machine mechanics, but.
New thread.