{"id":2638,"date":"2026-04-13T11:47:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T11:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/2638\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T11:47:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T11:47:11","slug":"following-an-election-earthquake-hungary-ponders-life-after-orban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/2638\/","title":{"rendered":"Following an election earthquake, Hungary ponders life after Orb\u00e1n"},"content":{"rendered":"

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) \u2014 After an election earthquake in which voters overwhelmingly rejected pro-Russian Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n<\/a>, Hungarians are contemplating what to expect from the country\u2019s incoming leader, P\u00e9ter Magyar \u2014 a pro-European reformer who has promised a fundamental transformation in Hungary\u2019s political culture.<\/p>\n

In his campaign, Magyar pledged to end Hungary\u2019s drift toward Russia<\/a> and restore its ties with European allies. He promised voters that after 16 years of autocratic governance and the erosion of the rule of law under Orb\u00e1n, he will root out corruption and create a \u201cpeaceful, functioning and humane\u201d Hungary.<\/p>\n

But what those changes will look like remains to be seen. During his long time in office, Orb\u00e1n ruled with the power of a two-thirds parliamentary majority, allowing him to pass a new constitution, rewrite the electoral system and reshape the judiciary.<\/p>\n

Magyar\u2019s Tisza party secured exactly such a mandate Sunday when it won 138 of parliament\u2019s 199 seats, giving it broad authority to undo much of the legislation that allowed Orb\u00e1n to stack the courts, manipulate the electoral system, crack down on press freedom and discriminate against the LGBTQ+ community<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Still, there are potential pitfalls that could stand in the way of the radical changes many Hungarians had hoped for.<\/p>\n

Historic win<\/p>\n

Magyar\u2019s victory was met with jubilation on the streets of Budapest late Sunday with tens of thousands, many of them young people<\/a>, celebrating what they view as a ray of hope that Orb\u00e1n\u2019s loss will make Hungary freer, happier and firmly rooted within the fold of European democracies.<\/p>\n

On streets and avenues across the capital, drivers blared car horns and cranked up anti-government songs while people marching in the streets chanted and screamed.<\/p>\n

During the celebrations, Adrien Rixer said he\u2019d come back to Hungary from his home in London \u201cbecause I really wanted to make my vote count, and I\u2019m over the moon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFinally I can say that I\u2019m a proud Hungarian, finally after 16 years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Many Hungarians, and others across Europe who were closely watching the election, had feared that a simple majority for Tisza would have been inadequate to truly transform Orb\u00e1n\u2019s system.<\/p>\n

Yet others remain uncertain about what the authority of a two-thirds majority will bring, with some uneasy about taking such a mandate from Orb\u00e1n and delivering it to his opponent.<\/p>\n

\u201cIts hard to see that with two-thirds that it’s going to be a fair government, but we will see,\u201d said reveller D\u00e1niel Kov\u00e1cs. \u201cLets hope that it\u2019s going to be a promising four years.\u201d<\/p>\n

The election win for Magyar and Tisza was without precedent in Hungary’s post-Communist history: They received more votes and more parliamentary seats than any party ever had before.<\/p>\n

Bulcs\u00fa Hunyadi, an analyst with the Budapest-based think tank Political Capital, said that while Tisza’s constitutional majority gives it broad powers to roll back many of Orb\u00e1n’s policies, Hungary’s key institutions are \u201cled by people who are cemented in their position for many years.\u201d<\/p>\n

As part of his broader effort to consolidate control over Hungary\u2019s democratic system, Orb\u00e1n installed loyal allies at the helm of key institutions, from the media authority to the public prosecutor\u2019s office and the Constitutional Court.<\/p>\n

In several cases, mandates were extended or new appointments pushed through before existing terms had expired \u2014 moves that effectively kept loyal leadership locked in place for years, well beyond any potential change in government.<\/p>\n

In his victory speech on Sunday, Magyar called for such officials \u2014 including Hungary’s president \u2014 to step down of their own accord. Beyond that, Hunyadi said, \u201cthey don\u2019t really have any other tools to remove these people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pressure from the EU<\/p>\n

Magyar accuses Orb\u00e1n and his government of mismanaging Hungary\u2019s economy and social services, and overseeing unchecked corruption he says has led to the accumulation of extreme wealth within a small circle of well-connected insiders while leaving ordinary Hungarians behind.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s vowed to hold such abuses to account, and plans to create an Office for the Recovery and Protection of National Assets to reclaim what he says are Orb\u00e1n\u2019s allies’ ill-gotten gains.<\/p>\n

Magyar campaigned heavily on a promise to bring home billions of euros in European Union funding that has been frozen to Hungary over corruption and rule-of-law concerns under Orb\u00e1n. He\u2019s also pledged to introduce the euro to Hungary by 2030 \u2014 something Orb\u00e1n\u2019s government long resisted.<\/p>\n

Hunyadi, the analyst, said Magyar’s government will be under \u201ctight pressure\u201d by the EU to quickly carry out reforms in order to get access to those frozen funds that are badly needed by Hungary’s faltering economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are deadlines in terms of unfreezing the funds. They will have to deliver certain laws and reforms by August this year, which is only a few months away,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Tisza’s win raised hopes across the EU that a new government in Budapest would reverse Orb\u00e1n’s antagonistic approach to Ukraine and his obstruction of efforts to assist the war-ravaged country as it defends against Russia’s full-scale invasion.<\/p>\n

Orb\u00e1n has used his veto power in the EU to stymie sanctions on Russia and block crucial funding to Kyiv. He’s also vowed never to allow talks on Ukraine joining the EU to resume.<\/p>\n

In a statement on Monday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Orb\u00e1n’s election campaign, \u201cwhich unfortunately was marked by manipulative rhetoric about Ukraine, is now behind us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe expect that … the election results will also contribute to a normalization of political relations,\u201d Sybiha said.<\/p>\n

Justin Spike And Sam Mcneil, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) \u2014 After an election earthquake in which voters overwhelmingly rejected pro-Russian Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2639,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[17,1762,229,1763,1369,1368,1367],"class_list":["post-2638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-canada","tag-electoral-system","tag-government","tag-hungarians","tag-hungary","tag-peter-magyar","tag-viktor-orban"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}