In this episode of Democracy in Question, host Shalini Randeria speaks with political scientist Zsolt Enyedi about the landmark 2026 Hungarian elections, which ended Viktor Orbán’s 16-year rule. The conversation explores how a deeply entrenched “soft authoritarian” system, characterized by media capture, institutional control, and an uneven electoral playing field, was ultimately overturned through democratic means. Despite Orbán’s dominance over state resources, the opposition party Tisza, led by former insider Péter Magyar, secured a two-thirds parliamentary majority. Enyedi argues that the regime’s fall was driven by a combination of economic stagnation, political fatigue, moral scandals, and the unification of a previously fragmented opposition. Crucially, Hungary’s position within the European Union limited the regime’s ability to escalate into full autocracy, preserving enough democratic space for electoral change. Finally, the discussion turns to the broader implications for Europe and beyond. Orbán had long served as a model for illiberal, right-wing populist movements. His defeat raises questions about the durability of such regimes, and whether Hungary could become a case study not just in democratic backsliding, but in democratic recovery.
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S11E08 Zsolt Enyedi
Shalini: [00:00:00] Welcome to Democracy in Question, the podcast series that explores the challenges democracies are facing around the world. I am Shalini Randeria, professor of Sociology at the Central European University, Vienna, and senior fellow at the Albert Hirschman Center on Democracy and the Graduate Institute in Geneva.
This is the eighth episode of season eleven of Democracy in Question. I am very pleased to welcome back my colleague, Zsolt Enyedi, professor of political science at the Central European University and a Senior Researcher at the CEU Democracy Institute in Budapest. His research focuses on party politics, comparative government, church and state relations, as well as political psychology -with particular focus on authoritarianism, political tolerance, and prejudices.
Zsolt held fellowships at the Woodrow Wilson Center, the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies, the European [00:01:00] University Institute in Florence, the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins University, and at Pembroke College Oxford. He was awarded the Rudolf Wildemann Prize in 2003 and the Bíbo Award in 2004. He has published in Political Psychology, The European Journal of Political Research, Europe-Asia Studies, The Journal of Ideologies, Political Studies and in The European Review His most recent book, “Party System Closure”, co-authored with Fernando Casal Bertoa, was published by Oxford University Press in 2021, and is also coming out in Spanish translation. He has been working most recently on neo-authoritarianism in Europe and the liberal democratic response to it, a theme that we had already discussed on the podcast a couple of years ago.
Zsolt joins me today to discuss stunning results of the Hungarian [00:02:00] parliamentary elections ten days ago, on April 12th, which brought down Viktor Orban´s illiberal regime after 16 years. These elections were among the most anticipated ones in Europe as the outcome has a symbolic powerful significance that reverberates around the European Union. It rekindles the hope that soft authoritarian regimes can still be beaten democratically. No matter how well entrenched these regimes are, as long as they don't turn to autocratic domination, it seems possible to overturn them at the ballot box.
Orban´s party, which had won a supermajority in the previous four elections, has now lost to a party formed just two years ago by a charismatic and energetic former member of his own Fidesz party. Peter Magyar´s Tisza party (or: Respect and Freedom Party) has achieved a [00:03:00] landslide victory with a two-thirds majority in the Hungarian parliament. It could therefore potentially roll back most of the legislative measures that the Orban government introduced to consolidate its own hegemony. I will ask Zsolt to first explain many features of the Orban regime, which ensured its enduring grip on Hungarian society. And then discuss with him the wide range of obstacles and roadblocks facing the new government's attempts to restore the rule of law. We will also talk about the meteoric rise of Peter Magyar, and the confluence of societal discontent and innovative campaign that accounts for the toppling of Orban and the obliteration of almost every other opposition party. Finally, I will ask Zsolt to address the wider implications of Orban´s fall as he and his regime have been an icon of the illiberal, ethno-nationalist international network and have served as a model for not only the MAGA [00:04:00] movement in the USA but for right-wing populist all over Europe as well
Zsolt, welcome back to the podcast. It's a great pleasure to have you as my guest once again and thank you so much for joining me today.
Zsolt: Thank you very much for inviting me back.
Shalini: Hungarian democracy has received a new lease of life due to the resounding defeat Orban and his Fidesz party suffered at the polls ten days ago. The opposition party Tisza has won a landslide victory that has ended 16 years of Orban´s soft authoritarian ruling, which had so effectively combined authoritarian illiberal features with formal democratic ones. Tisza´s two-thirds majority is remarkable given that during his four terms in office, Orban had systematically hollowed out liberal democratic [00:05:00] principles, institutions and norms using his parliamentary majority, the courts that he had captured, and its subservient media owned by oligarchs close to him. So, could you begin by explaining this really well-entrenched Orban system? Overturning his regime through democratic elections seemed so improbable just a year ago.
Zsolt: The Hungarian case illustrates, I think, very well the saying that the night is the darkest before the dawn. All cards were stacked against the challenger within the Orban regime. A year ago, I published a piece with a colleague of mine, Balint Mikola with a subtitle of “Well-Managed Autocratization”[1]. And even though we see now the entire regime crumbling in front of our eyes, I would not change a single sentence there. So, the most important issue, I think, was [00:06:00] the uneven playing field in terms of resources behind which one can find the total capture of the Hungarian state.
Actually, until Meta and Google allowed political acts, you could even monitor the advantage of Fidesz. And the ratio between Fidesz and the opposition was either ten to one or even worse. Fidesz came up as the wealthiest party in entire Europe based on this particular indicator. And I think that they have even underestimated the advantages.
When you walked in the last weeks in the streets of Budapest, you could see many posters promoting in one way or another Orban´s rhetoric. But out of these posters most were not financed by Fidesz. At least one third was financed by the Hungarian government, and at least another third was financed by NGOs that received money from the Hungarian state. And then the other big issue is media. [00:07:00] Fidesz owned the public media and half of the private media. And when we talk about public media, you should not think of a style that is typical, let's say of Fox News, but rather the style of the North Korean TV. Peter Magyar, for example, was not invited to the public media and whenever he was mentioned there, he was only mentioned negatively. Viktor Orban was all the time on the media.
The electoral system was engineered in a way that the votes for Fidesz was meant to carry more weight than a vote for the opposition. And most importantly, the entire state functions as a kind of campaign machine. Just to give an example, the elderly who signed up for a smart device that you need, if you need to call an ambulance, were contacted regularly by Viktor Orban with propaganda telling them how much threat Ukraine poses to Hungary and [00:08:00] how much Orban is able to save them.
When it comes to corruption, I think the most important issue was that the chief prosecutor was a Fidesz guy who has not allowed a single case that involved high ranking Fidesz leaders to reach the court. And what maybe is very important, enormous amounts of money went into educational institutions that were aimed to groom the new Fidesz generation. In general, not a single independent body or so-called independent body, was left out. All of them were controlled by Fidesz loyalists.
Shalini: When we discussed on this podcast a couple of years ago, your own research on authoritarianism and illiberalism across Eastern and Central Europe, you had emphasized that illiberal leaders do not need to move towards autocratic extremes because they enjoy electoral [00:09:00] legitimacy. And they win popular support not only by promising security, stability, strong leadership of the kind that Orban has been promising. But they also mobilized national pride and play on fears of social disintegration due to unchecked immigration. This has been populist´s right-wing trope across all of Europe. And these leaders capitalize on the resentment and the frustrations of those who were left behind by neoliberal capitalist changes. Now Orban´s regime had successfully combined all of these elements. In fact, it served as a model for soft authoritarian rule around the world. But interestingly, neither years of generous handouts through selective social policies to his clientele have saved him, nor did the strong support of Trump help him. What mistakes and miscalculations turned the [00:10:00] tide against the Orban regime this time?
Zsolt: I think the fundamental issue is the lack of growth. Between 2013 and about 2019 or so, the regime had some really wonderful years . But after that the investments dried up, and EU also stopped its transfers to Hungary. So, I think economic comes first. Then the second factor is that the fragmented opposition was replaced by one unitary party. The Hungarian electoral system penalizes fragmentation very much. And this time this very disproportional nature of the Hungarina system did not hurt the opposition, the other way around it actually has.
The third factor is perhaps the long string of moral scandals. I think, that was hurtful because Fidesz had a very moralistic discourse against the opposition and against sexual minorities. [00:11:00] So when it turned out that the top officials of the regime covered child abuse cases, then the hypocrisy of the regime was displayed in a very spectacular fashion. And then the perhaps fith factor is that Viktor Orban himself got out of touch with people. People also got tired of him and seeing him all the time on TV for 20 years as Prime Minister. But more importantly, he became somewhat aloof. He felt that the country is in his pocket and started to be not so much interested in what is happening within Hungary, but what is happening globally. So, his focus shifted to foreign policy instead of domestic issues. And in that sense, his offer was very much not in synchrony with what the citizens wanted to hear about in an electoral campaign.
And then I think he made a mistake by underestimating [00:12:00] Peter Magyar. And I think that the reason for this mistake is that Peter Magyar belonged to Fidesz, but while Orban was the kind of field marshal of the Fidesz army, Peter Magyar was a simple sergeant. And Orban just could not picture that someone with inferior status and without any electoral experience, and without the backing of the traditional leftist elite could pose a danger to his power.
Shalini: This is interesting because I am comparing what you are telling me about Hungary with Poland. Of course, there are differences because in Poland the elections did overturn the soft authoritarian PiS regime but brought in place a rather motley coalition of parties, which is having difficulty in overturning the previous governments illiberal institutional structures. [00:13:00] But what is interesting is that unlike totalitarian or fascist dictatorships, when all opposition is violently repressed, what we see in Hungary and in Poland is that these soft authoritarian regimes still depend on the legitimacy of winning power through elections, however unfair they may be, as you just pointed out.What in your view are the more general lessons from Hungary and Poland that we can draw about the ultimate vulnerability of these regimes?
Zsolt: I believe that the fundamental factor is that until people retain some rights, anything can happen. It is also important to underline that, while both regimes were, as you correctly described, soft authoritarian, it's also important that they are both in Central Europe. They are part of the European Union. And in this location soft authoritarianism plays out in a very particular way. There is very little violence, [00:14:00] there is constant reference to democratic legitimacy. There is very little electoral fraud, more than what we would wish, but overall, not that much. So, in such system, the rulers can influence mental frames, they can influence incentives. They have a huge advantage in terms of resources. And all these tools are powerful enough to turn, let's say a 40% genuine support into a majority governmental status. But once the discontent in the society grows so much that the genuine support falls below, let us say 40%, then the regime basically has to choose: either they go into a hard authoritarian direction, or they just leave their fortune to the electoral results. And within the EU, you cannot go to the hard authoritarian option. Another important factor, I think, is that in soft [00:15:00] authoritarian regime, the ruler never knows his or her actual support. For example, I understand from various rumours that Orban genuinely thought until the last weeks that he can win, that public opinion is in his favour. And by the time he realized that this is not the case, that he will lose; it was too late to change the institutions. He could have changed the institutions. earlier He could have introduced a presidential system. He could have changed the electoral system into a proportional one, which would have softened the blow and allow him retaining veto powers. But it was too late. By the time he realized that he lost the electoral campaign, he couldn't resort to these kinds of tools.
Shalini: [00:16:00] Orban seems to have ignored the independent opinion polls that you and I have placed our trust in over the last weeks. These polls showed since some months the ruling party trailing well behind the opposition party, Tisza. But it seems, Orban had his own opinion polls carried out by companies close to him who were obviously painting a rosy picture of his victory a picture that he fortunately chose to believe.
Zsolt: There are two factors here. One, indeed all opinion poll companies that are close to Orban showed Orban to be in lead. We don't know what are the actual results obtained by these companies. So, it is possible that they had different results that they conveyed to Orban, but not to us. But I can imagine that bosses of these [00:17:00] companies are rewarded for bringing good news to the boss. When they had a choice among methods, how to collect opinion polls, then they opted for those methods that provided the best results, so that they could make the boss smile. The other thing is that even if Orban knew that he is lagging behind, he thought that his mobilizational capacity is far superior to the oppositions. And also, we know that Fidesz has paid many young people coming over from Romania, Hungarian ethnic youngsters who were paid to knock on doors. They had an army to use that the other side did not have, except volunteers, but Orban had money. He thought that these assets together with voter [00:18:00] intimidation will make the results much closer. And once the results are close to each other, then a little bit of electoral fraud, a little bit of help from the courts that adjudicate electoral disputes, a little bit of help from the radical right-wing party “Our Homeland”, all these things together will be enough to provide him with more MPs than Magyar, and that will be enough. So, he underestimated the superiority of his campaign organization, partly because local bosses in Fidesz never dared to report the actual lack of enthusiasm on the ground.
Shalini: Now that he is out of power, and will be in the opposition, let us talk about the kinds of problems that he can create for the newly elected government of Peter [00:19:00] Magyar. Here I think the Polish experience is a cautionary tale in how a new government can be thwarted by the entrenched power of the illiberal system and the loyalists who have been put in place by the previous authoritarian predecessor. Orban, and many in this close circle of associates and oligarchs in Hungary must be afraid that they may face criminal charges if the new government follows up on its campaign promises. What could be the obstacles that Orban and his party could put in the way of a meaningful restoration of liberal democracy in Hungary? After all, as you pointed out, they have amassed sizable wealth, they control still 80% of the media. Courts and bureaucracy are probably both packed with their cadres who are not that likely to change their loyalties, I would assume. [00:20:00] And the Orban lit oligarchs will probably remain deeply embedded in the economy. So, how much leverage will this “orbanized deep state” give Fidesz and Orban to work against the new government?
Zsolt: The good news is that most judges in Hungary, unlike in Poland, I believe, stayed true to their professional ethics. So, it was only the upper layer that served the system without any inhibition. The other good news is that the bulk of Orban´s media doesn't have a business model that can survive many years in opposition without any state subsidies. The real question at the moment is: what will happen to the president who is a Fidesz loyalist and to the constitutional court? These are the two most important stumbling [00:21:00] blocks or obstacles. Legally, it is not easy, for example, to replace judges in the constitutional court. I would say it is not even possible. Maybe one solution there is to increase the size of the court, which does not look a very elegant thing to do, but maybe this is the only thing that is possible. Of course, they could resign on their own, but I do not know whether that will happen. I can imagine that to happen with the president, though. The president is lightweight, he resigns under pressure and that would make life much, much easier for Magyar. In general, what I would like to emphasize is that Orban ironically established a regime that allows Magyar to fire virtually all civil servants, not only the Orban loyalists, but virtually anyone at will. And he could, if Peter Magyar wanted [00:22:00] to completely dominate the public media just because Orban created a framework that allows for power concentration. That is now available to Magyar, and he could use it for much more noble purposes.
Shalini: Let us turn to the stunning achievement of Peter Magyar and his new party. He has been a member of Orban´s party, as you pointed out, until only two years ago when he broke with Orban and created his new party from scratch. You have called it the political voice of “Middle Hungary”. Could you explain this characterization that you have used in terms of demographics and also the highly successful mobilization in the countryside, which used to be Orban's traditional base?
Zsolt: By “middle” I try to refer to the fact that the agenda of the electoral campaign and in general of these very fast [00:23:00] changes was not dominated by the concerns of the poor. It was not dominated by the concerns of the elite, but by the concerns, problems of ordinary citizens. Actually, Magyar refused to say much about many of the issues that are very interesting for people like us. He has not said anything about rights of sexual minorities. He hardly said anything about Ukraine, the nature of the electoral system, the necessary constitutional changes. So, all these issues were put aside. He probably thought that these are issues that are relevant for the intellectuals. Instead, he focused on healthcare, public transportation, quality of public services, corruption - stuff like that. And his symbols also appeal to patriots living in the countryside, midtowns and smaller settlements. [00:24:00] So in general, he kept distance from the left liberal vanguard. By “Middle Hungary”, I meant to refer both to the typical voters of Magyar, but also to the agenda of the campaign and the symbols used by him.
“Middle Hungary” has been disgruntled already for a very long time. But the traditional leftist and the traditional liberal politicians appear from that perspective as too ideological, too much concerned with issues that are far away from ordinary citizens. Be it Ukraine, green transition and many other issues where maybe many citizens agreed actually with this elite, but they thought that this agenda will cost us a lot. The other thing is that Magyar´s discourse also had a moralistic tone. But he has not projected the kind of life and death struggle between fascists [00:25:00] and liberals or democrats. He did. emphasize the West and also the rule of law and checks and balances, but not so much as a political program, but rather as attributes of a culture to which Hungary belongs since the end of the first millennial. So, it is not so much a choice, but simply this is who we are. And using such a rhetoric he could obtain all the votes on the left and liberals who understood by “West” things like tolerance, diversity, and so on. But also, the vote of the conservatives who understood by these terms rather Christian values.
Shalini: The speed of Tisza´s meteoric rise is surprising, as is the fact that it got 55% of the popular vote. In March 2024 when Magyar held his first rally in Budapest, the new party didn't even have a name. What resources did the party have to [00:26:00] build a base across the country so successfully and so fast that it was able to select candidates, mobilize some 50,000 volunteers, and organize Magyar´s own visits to some 700 towns and villages in the last two years? I think, understanding how this could be possible despite state capture by the ruling party, would be essential for oppositional movements all across Europe who are facing similarly entrenched incumbents. How did Peter Magyar overcome the handicap of a monopolistic media controlled by the Orban regime and its control of campaign funds, which were reserved only for parliamentary incumbents, which Tisza party was not? What were his media strategies and campaign messages, which some critics were describing as rather vague and [00:27:00] even right-wing populist on the issue of immigration?
Zsolt: Part of the answer to this question is that he indeed addressed citizens directly visiting them in their own town, where they live. So going to virtually every single settlement in Hungary, talking to people, this was a feat never done by anyone. And so, he could circumvent the existing media structures. He also produced a newsletter that could be distributed to every single household. This newsletter was nothing fancy. So, you don't need that much amount of money to have this very simple newspaper. But I think in general, he won the media war on internet and in social media. And de did that in an organic way without money. People were simply interested in what he has [00:28:00] to say. All of us were curious, and this is partly because we knew where he comes from. He was part of the regime. His very first interview was listened to by two million people.
Hungary has less than ten million people. So, two million listeners within a couple of weeks were quite something. So, there was a kind of interesting psychology around Peter Magyar. He was a mystery man coming from a party that has never been defected from by anyone. It was a very disciplined organization; never anyone disagreeing with anybody else, nobody criticizing Orban. So Magyar was just a rare phenomenon.
But Hungary has now, already for a couple of years, extremely influential independent news websites. And we should mention that, because I think that they were extremely crucial for democratization. They were developed from scratch. They did receive a little bit of funding [00:29:00] from abroad, but I think most of their money comes from crowdfunding. Now, in the past, Hungarians were not used to pay for news. It came free. But then they realized, that giving money to this media, to this website is a vote for democracy, and also a vote for facts, because otherwise you just cannot get hold of facts. If there is a general lesson to be drawn from the Hungarian case, I think it is that journalists can play a big role and they have to be very innovative. They have to look for alternative channels of funding. And that maybe not immediately, but sooner or later citizens realize that this is a service not only for their entertainment, but also a service for having a healthy public life. And in the Hungarian case, ultimately they were willing to donate large sums of [00:30:00] money to these websites.
Shalini: How important in your view was Peter Magar's personal charisma? A young, energetic good-looking man fighting against tired old Orban, whom as you said, everyone was used to seeing continuously in the public eye? Could you say something about the main constituent groups of the 3.3 million voters that Tisza was able to attract in a record turnout, including I believe, hundreds and thousands of new voters who came in for the first time to cast their ballot and topple the Orban regime.
Zsolt: I would not place his charisma on the same level as the lack of economic growth or the popular rejection of Orban. Many of us rather, including me, voted for Magyar [00:31:00] not because, but despite his personality and his past. But I must acknowledge he emerged as a charismatic figure by the end of the electoral campaign. Most citizens in Hungary have difficulties naming any other politician in Tisza but Magyar. He worked extremely hard, as you mentioned: he visited all these hundreds of towns. And he showed incredible ability to withstand all the attacks by the government propaganda. So, there were actually good reasons to admire him. Maybe we should forget his checkered past. There are many politicians in history who had a problematic past and then they turn into positive figures. And in Hungary we know that very well because the heroes of the 1956 revolution, many of them were Stalinists just a couple of years earlier, and then they became martyrs.
Now as [00:32:00] far as the voting base is concerned, because we do not have yet post-election results, I can just rely on the pre-election surveys. They showed that the more educated, the more urban, the less religious and the younger citizen preferred the opposition. Some of these differences became smaller, I think, during the campaign, and by the end I would say that in virtually all categories Magyar won. Maybe in the category of the smallest settlement where only couple of dozens of hundreds of people live, and among the least educated, maybe Orban still has a majority. But in all other categories Magyar won. But indeed, the most spectacular contribution came from the young. Especially compared to the previous elections when the young were always [00:33:00] very unreliable, but more importantly, they gave energy to the campaign. So right now, in Hungary, age is a very strong predictor of the vote, and this is relevant in very simple biological terms. One reason why Fidesz received fewer votes than last time is simply because some of its voters died. They were too old.
Shalini: Something which really surprised me on the night of the elections as I was following the results with bated breath: Orbán conceded defeat quite early on election night. What kinds of roadblocks could the Fidesz government still set up in the process of the transition? I think they are in office still for one more month.
Do you think it could, for example, extend the powers of the Hungarian President to thwart legislative change, which will be [00:34:00] brought in? Magyar is promising reforms to the electoral system, to party financing, and most importantly, he has promised that he would set a limit of two terms for prime ministership that would apply even retrospectively, which means Orban coming back to power would be ruled out through a new law. This of course would be a very different trajectory then for Orban than the kind of comeback we have seen in the case of Trump.
Zsolt: We cannot exclude the possibility that Orban may come back. He has the talent; he has the network. He has a huge amount of money that he put aside. But in general, I would not expect this to happen simply. He has ruled far too long. He has been Prime Minister for 20 years, and I don't think Hungarians want more Orban years. He may need to be active in politics, partly to try to save his relatives [00:35:00] and his close friends who may be in danger of being accused of corruption.
I can imagine that he will stay around for some time. He may want even to retire as a respectful opposition leader as opposed to a fallen prime minister. But I do not think he will return as the ruler of the country. Now, when it comes to the institutional changes, the government will not try any of those. This government has been so utterly defeated that I think, what they are busy with, is trying to get rid of evidence of various criminal deeds. And I don't think they have a horizon beyond emptying the coffers, making sure that not a single penny is left in the Hungarian budget. This is something they can still do. And as I understand, even the day after election, there was some large amount of spending on various institutions that are controlled by Fidesz loyalists. And [00:36:00] that will create major difficulties for Magyar, who will not face any legal threshold but will face lack of money. The fact that by the time he gets into the Hungarian government's offices, all the cupboards will be empty. There will be no usable plan he can work on. There will be no information shared with him. That kind of issues are very serious because indeed the outgoing politicians do have the interest to undermine the success of the new government. And they cannot do anything major. But anything that can be done in a clandestine fashion I am pretty sure they'll do.
Shalini: One of the arguments you have made is that the country's economic problems and the pervasive corruption of the Orban regime is the primary cause of Orban's defeat because these were the problems which really affected [00:37:00] the everyday lives of ordinary citizens. The Hungarian economy has been stagnating for years. Sovereign debt is on the rise, deficit is high. And sixteen billion Euros of the EU´s money is blocked because of corruption and of no progress on reinstating the rule of law. Now, this will mean that if the government inherits empty coffers, it'll have to make some very difficult choices. What do you think will its new economic agenda? He will have to have very quick constitutional reforms to reinstate rule of law because that will be the key to unfreezing the EU funds. So how quickly can one get that done?
Zsolt: What I read in the program is that they plan to transit from a kind of political controlled economy into a much more rule based and EU integrated system. And [00:38:00] their optimistic take on these matters is that much money will emerge from breaking up the state capture and the oligarchic networks, and transparency will also unlock extra money. I am not sure whether they are right in being optimistic. I don't think that getting rid of corruption unfreezes that amount of money. And indeed, the Hungarian economy in general, and specifically the state budget, is in a bad shape. The deficit is already as high now in mid-April as it is supposed to be at the end of December. Really there is no money. At the same time, and maybe this shows that pessimists like me are wrong, we also witnessed in the last days that the Hungarian currency increased its value dramatically. So, the markets seem to be very positive about [00:39:00] this change. And maybe that means that whenever Hungary issues bonds, takes loans, the interest rate will be much lower, so everything will be more easily financed. But whether they will have the money for all the reforms, I am not sure because they promised to keep all the extraordinary benefits that the Orban government issued: the family benefits, pensions. Then they went even further. They said that above that they will target extra benefits for the needy, for the poor. The only new source of money they pointed to, next to EU money and money not being stolen, is a wealth tax. But this wealth tax is supposed to apply to couple of dozens of people, or a couple of hundreds of people. So, I do not think that group of people. [00:40:00] can provide the missing sources. And I also suspect that those are exactly the type of people who can in the coming days, take their money to Dubai or Geneva or wherever.
Shalini: Let's turn now to the wider international implications of Orban’s defeat. He was of course the Bête Noir of the European Union because he had torpedoed many important initiatives with his veto. So, the European Council was trying to come up with procedural reforms to circumvent unanimity of decision making. Now Peter Magyar has clearly signalled his government's intent to overcome the acrimonious relationship with Brussels and also with many member states. How do you think Orban´s exit will affect the European political landscape of the right-wing, where he was a key figure in the sovereign populist camp? And let us not forget, he has been bankrolling through his oligarchs, etc. [00:41:00] the extreme right parties in France or Vox in Spain, and he has built a sizable organizational network all across Europe.
Zsolt: Indeed. He was a major sponsor of the intellectual infrastructure of the illiberal surge globally. He channelled money probably from Russia, though we cannot be sure of that, to West European hard drive parties. And he created the hub where anybody interested in helping the illiberal project could come to Budapest, could get fellowships and stipends. And so, he is a very central figure without any doubt. It is also true, however, that at the moment he is also an embarrassment for the very same people because these people believed that Hungary proves not only that it is possible to be a neoliberal state within [00:42:00] the EU, a Christian conservative regime in the heart of Europe, but also that this is great for the culture wars. And now, they are still thinking how to interpret what happened a couple of days ago. I just read a tweet from Elon Musk who said that the Soros´ organization has taken over Hungary. So, it was a Soros conspiracy that explains the defeat of Orban. But the defeat is so large and we know that, as you mentioned, Trump supported him, Putin supported him. He had the money. He had the state power. Clearly there was one thing missing, and that was the people. And how can you spin it in a way that it is still beneficial for this radical right and deliberate circles? Hungary is no longer a proof of concept, no longer a reference case that can be used in the narratives of the illiberal right? And that is a big chance.
Shalini: This [00:43:00] spectacular defeat of Orban, which is being celebrated by democrats all over the world, should we see this then as the first domino to fall? Do you think that the 2026 Hungarian election marks a possible tipping point that could reinvigorate the fight against the illiberal, soft authoritarian wave, which has dominated politics in Europe and beyond, including the MAGA base of Trump, for whom Orban also served as a model?
Zsolt: Could be. I do not see the immediate reason why these parties, the AfD in Germany, the Rassemblement National in France and all the others, would have fewer voters tomorrow than today. So, I do not expect immediate, direct, short-term impact, but some kind of long-term impact is possible exactly because of the things we discussed. The illiberal narrative that there is a [00:44:00] well-functioning alternative to liberal democracy, that is I think, no longer tenable because the one country that seemed to be able to create a kind of illiberal template that was palatable for Westerners, Europeans, that one country is gone. So, in that regard I see a major danger for the illiberals whom I study. But for them to really suffer you still need the other side of the story, and this is that Magyar is a success. So, as Orban was the poster boy of these illiberal guides for autocratization , Peter Magyar must become the poster boy of re-democratization. Otherwise, this will be just an idiosyncratic story that we will forget about.
Shalini: One can only wish the new government all [00:45:00] success! It will get a lot of support from the EU because there has been great relief in Brussels at the election results as well. Thank you so much, Zsolt, for this insightful conversation on the Hungarian election and its wider ramifications both for Hungary and for Europe. Thanks for being with me today.
Zsolt: It was a pleasure. Thanks a lot.
Shalini: We have heard a fascinating analysis from Zsolt Enyedi of the crushing defeat of Viktor Orban´s soft authoritarian regime in the recent Hungarian elections. In his 16 years in government, Orban had systematically hollowed out all liberal democratic institutions. He built a disciplined party cadre, and favoured oligarchs close to him who monopolized economic power. He changed electoral laws to perpetuate his power, captured the media, choked civil society, took control of universities, and filled the [00:46:00] constitutional court as well as the bureaucracy with loyal supporters. And yet, astonishingly a defector from his own party, who formed a new party only two years ago, was able to win a two-thirds majority. As Zsolt pointed out, Peter Magyar´s victory was possible because Hungary is part of the European Union, where there are limits that prevent authoritarian rule turning into autocracy. So, election rules can be skewed in favour of the ruling party, but opposition leaders are not in jail. And since neither public nor private media was accessible to Peter Magyar, the architect of this overwhelming win, he toured the entire country, especially the countryside, connecting with voters personally and used the social media for his campaign. He avoided all controversial, potentially divisive topics, and [00:47:00] instead focused on the Orban regime's corruption and its glaring economic failures that affected ordinary citizens.
His message of unity and national pride resonated with voters as against Orban's polarizing propaganda of fear mongering against Ukraine and the European Union. Zsolt summed it up by arguing that Orban had corrupted the system, so he had all the financial and institutional advantages on his side. But what he did not have on his side this time were the people of Hungary. He underestimated his opponent and overestimated his old popularity, as is true of soft authoritarian rulers who do not always get good information from sycophantic subordinates, afraid of displeasing their boss. Zsolt stated that the new government has a supermajority that would allow it to change the constitution, reform election laws and party [00:48:00] financing, as well as engineers a return back to the rule of law.
So, though the Orban regime has been toppled, it will take a lot of work to dismantle the illiberal authoritarian system he had carefully put in place. Ironically, the sweeping powers that Orban had given himself can now be used by the new leader to change things in the direction of a liberal democracy.
However, the main obstacle that the new government faces will be the empty coffers that have been left behind. Raising new revenue sources like a wealth tax will be difficult. While Zsolt thinks that it is unlikely that Orban will return to power after a turn in the opposition, the European and transatlantic networks of right-wing populist that he has built and financed remains intact.
Orban´s Hungary can no longer provide the successful, [00:49:00] invincible template for illiberal authoritarian rule. But for that model to lose its legitimacy completely, it is absolutely vital that the new government´s re-democratization of Hungary is a speedy success.
Shalini: This was the eighth episode of Season 11 of Democracy in Question. Thank you very much for listening. Join me again next month for a conversation with Pratab Bhanu Mehta from Princeton University on the recent civilizational turn in political discourse in many regions of the world. Please go back and listen to any episode that you might have missed. And of course, let your friends know about the podcast if you are enjoying it.
You can stay in touch with the work of the CEU at [00:50:00]www.ceu.edu and the Albert Hirschman Center on Democracy at www.graduateinstitute.ch/democracy .
[1]Enyedi, Zsolt/ Mikola, Balint: Legislative Capture in Hungary: Well-Managed Autocratization, in: The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 712 (1), pp.34-46. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716224130 .