Orbán is out – and now the world knows another way is possible

Orbán’s Hungary has in recent years become a symbol of the far right nationalist kleptocratic politics which, with Trump as the chief flagbearer, looked to be on the march in democracies wherever you looked. Part of Orban’s strength over four terms was the creation of a sense of invincibility.

That myth has now gone. And it can go elsewhere.

Trump sent both Marco Rubio and the hapless JD Vance to campaign for Orban. The US president and his family, who like Orban’s friends and family are getting rich on the back of power, posted election social media posts urging Hungarians to back their man. 

But those same Hungarians queued from dawn to tell MAGA where it could stick its foreign interference in their elections.

Vladimir Putin sent money for posters attacking Volodymyr Zelensky and Ursula von der Leyen as the real opposition, a role assigned previously to George Soros. The Russian dictator sent agents to spread disinformation and launch false flag operations but, as in Moldova, where they tried the same game to defeat Maia Sandu, the scale of opposition to Orban, and support for Peter Magyar, was just too strong. Democracy beat dictatorship and foreign interference hands down.

Magyar is an unlikely hero for anyone on the progressive left, for he is himself a former leading light in Orbán’s Fidesz party, and well to the right of some of the European political figures rejoicing at his win. But he matched the strategy to the needs of the time, and deserves all the plaudits coming his way. Now the hard part begins, though the scale of the win means he should be able to undo some of the most egregious Orbán changes.

I hope some of you have been listening to the Rest Is Politics mini-series on populism, in which I have been talking to Labour MP Liam Byrne about his book on why the populists are winning, and how to defeat them. Magyar has shown the way, and part of the answer is that you do not condemn voters because of their different views, you respect the differences, and try to persuade them to your side.

Fidesz thought they had a monopoly on Hungarian nationalism. Magyar developed a language that spoke to a more inclusive version of it. Like Trump, Orbán

 portrayed his own politics and his own supporters as the country itself, casting critics as outsiders. Magyar sought to appeal to Fidesz voters as part of a shared political and national community.

Byrne says the populists rely on 3 As – appeasement, autocracy and avarice. Magyar refused to accept he could not win – no to appeasement, no to doing deals; he exposed the autocracy and avarice not to claim some kind of moral superiority, but to show that the living standards of ordinary people were harmed by the corruption of the ruling elite.

This is where Orbán screwed it up for himself. If you win power by posing as a man of the people fighting a corrupt elite, and you become the corrupt elite yourself, don’t be too shocked if people turn against you.

Putin could get round that by going full dictator. Orbán, not least because of the membership of the EU, was somewhat constrained. The more EU resources seemed to be landing in the hands of his inner circle – his best friend, a former gas fitter, Lörinc Meszaros, became the richest man in Hungary – the more Magyar was able to relate the industrial scale corruption to everyday lives. 

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And part of Orbán’s hubris was that because he had developed an almost Putin-like grip on the media, he assumed their 24/7 propaganda on his behalf was working. But real public opinion stopped listening ages ago. The same hubris made him think that Hungarians would be proud that the leader of their little country was so admired by Trump, Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu, Javier Milei, Marine Le Pen, Alice Weidel, Nigel Farage, and the entire international organisation of far right pro-Putin, pro-money authoritarian populists.

Well guess what? It turns out they were ashamed of it. It turned out JD Vance flying in to bolster Orbán had exactly the opposite effect.

What a week for the US vice president! Final nail in Orbán’s coffin; and then a total failure at the Iran talks in Islamabad.

As with Donald Tusk in Poland, Magyar will find resistance from the forces Orbán has cemented into all aspects of Hungarian life. But the scale of his victory helps.

Orbán conceding defeat so quickly was a signal of that. It means Magyar might be able to deliver on all of his campaign promises, including systemic institutional changes to unlock more than six billion euros of EU funding.

The other big winner, thank heavens, is Ukraine. Orbán has been doing Putin’s bidding for too long. The leaked conversations between Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and his Hungarian counterpart Péter Szijjártó exposed that for all to see.

Orbán has sought to block and undermine EU support for President Zelensky at every turn. It is now likely the long-promised 90 billion euros of support will begin to flow.

Trump’s election win sending him back to the White House was a big blow to liberal democracy, and a big blow to Ukraine, and so to Europe. The ordinary people of Hungary have shown there is another way, which is why the celebrations are taking place well beyond the borders of a landlocked country the same size as the state of Indiana, and seven times smaller than Texas.