As we all know, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary, the long-time leader of the right-wing conservative Fidesz Party, was defeated in the Hungarian parliamentary election earlier this month by a landslide margin after 16 years straight in office. The last time someone not named Viktor Orbán was elected Prime Minister in Hungary was in 2006—people born that year were old enough to vote in this year’s election.

You would think that in this case, the liberal, progressive people of Hungary are rejoicing, wouldn’t you?

Apparently not. The left-leaning Hungarian news site Telex has published an article dedicated to how to tackle anxiety over the election results among supporters (!) of the eventual winner Péter Magyar. The piece is titled I Have Been Waiting for This for 16 Years, But I Still Have Anxiety, What’s Wrong with Me? It seems the writing staff at Telex felt this was a common enough phenomenon to warrant an article where they speak to two psychologists about the issue.

‘Crowds celebrated, hugged each other, and danced last Sunday night after Tisza won with a two-thirds majority and ousted Fidesz after a long time. If, however, someone has been filled with mixed feelings in recent days and feels unable to rejoice, even though they’ve been waiting for this change for 16 years, there’s nothing wrong with them—their reactions are normal. We asked psychologists to explain that strange phenomenon where something you’ve longed for happens, yet you don’t feel joy,’ the article by Telex starts.

Social psychologist József Pántya gives his expert opinion on the issue first. According to him, an emotionally intense event like the 2026 Hungarian election campaign is expected to elicit varying reactions in people of different ages, personalities, and predispositions, even on the same side of the political aisle. He then explained that intense negative and positive emotions about an event alike tend to last shorter than we anticipate: people tend to get accustomed to positive changes quickly, while emotions sparked by negative changes are subdued by our ‘emotional immune system,’ Pántya tells Telex.

Bence Péter Bíró, the other psychologist quoted in the piece, claims that opposition voters had been under ‘chronic stress’ for 16 years, caused by what they saw as the harmful governance of the Orbán administrations. Their nervous system may not be able to quickly adapt to the major change, which could cause anxiety, he continues, then adding that there have been studies conducted in the United States about this phenomenon. Bíró then likens the state of mind of liberal voters of Hungary to people who have escaped a long-term abusive relationship (!): those people too need some time to adapt to their new status quo, even if the change in their life was positive.

‘Bíró likens the state of mind of liberal voters of Hungary to people who have escaped a long-term abusive relationship’

Pántya goes on to suggest that the negative emotions felt by liberal voters of Hungary may just be emotional exhaustion after the intense campaign. Meanwhile, Bíró speculates that those voters now may feel doubt over whether the incoming Magyar administration will actually serve their interests and desires as they had hoped.

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