{"id":65607,"date":"2026-05-11T03:09:34","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T03:09:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/65607\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T03:09:34","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T03:09:34","slug":"in-hungary-viktor-orban-loyalists-jump-ship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/65607\/","title":{"rendered":"In Hungary, Viktor Orban Loyalists Jump Ship"},"content":{"rendered":"

The often vicious media machine built by Hungary\u2019s longtime leader Viktor Orban last week took a small step toward accepting that elections in April had swept away the old system. Its flagship newspaper promised to stop calling the incoming prime minister, Peter Magyar, a \u201cbug\u201d who must be \u201cexterminated.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the future, we will refrain from calling you a bug or showing you as an insect in any context,\u201d Magyar Nemzet, a pugnacious print and internet outlet, said in a contrite letter to Mr. Magyar, who takes over as Hungary\u2019s prime minister on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The letter was sent on orders from a Hungarian court, so was hardly a spontaneous peace offering, but its sincerity is sure to be tested by Mr. Magyar\u2019s ascent.<\/p>\n

The incoming prime minister has insisted that his sweeping election victory on April 12<\/a> should bring about not only a change of government in Hungary, but a \u201ccomplete regime change\u201d after 16 years of rule by Mr. Orban\u2019s defeated Fidesz party.<\/p>\n

Whether that happens will depend on uprooting a vast network of patronage that embedded Fidesz loyalists in businesses, the judiciary, regulatory agencies, prosecutors\u2019 offices and the news media.<\/p>\n

For now, many erstwhile Orban loyalists are doing the hard work for him. While some are resisting what they see as a vengeful purge by a power-hungry new leader, many who depended on Fidesz for jobs and protection are already changing sides.<\/p>\n

The turnaround has come with the dawning realization that Mr. Magyar\u2019s victory so battered the once-invincible Fidesz that it has no real hope of keeping state funds and contracts flowing to its friends, or of holding anticorruption investigators at bay.<\/p>\n

A prominent Fidesz-friendly businessman, Gyula Balasy, announced in a tearful interview on Monday that, fearing investigation for corruption, he was giving the state ownership of four of his main companies.<\/p>\n

His business won lucrative and, according to rival companies, highly overpriced contracts from Mr. Orban\u2019s government to plaster billboards across Hungary with incendiary posters denouncing the European Union and Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Hungary\u2019s national police force said on Wednesday that it had blocked bank accounts connected to Mr. Balasy\u2019s companies and started a \u201cfraud and money laundering\u201d investigation.<\/p>\n

Mr. Magyar welcomed the businessman\u2019s retreat, saying on Facebook that<\/a> \u201cthis system can collapse much faster than anyone would think.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor all of them it is over. They believed that it would continue forever and are now going through all the stages of grief,\u201d said Csaba Lukacs, a veteran journalist and the managing director of Magyar Hang, a conservative newspaper.<\/p>\n

Mr. Lukacs once worked for Magyar Nemzet, the newspaper that referred to the new prime minister as a bug, but left when Fidesz started turning it into a nationalist bullhorn focused on smearing Mr. Orban\u2019s opponents.<\/p>\n

\u201cFidesz,\u201d he said, \u201cbecame a cult,\u201d with Mr. Orban at its center. Shellshocked by its election debacle, the party is struggling to understand what happened and to adjust to the new order. (Magyar Nemzet now runs post-election information under a new rubric: \u201cPost-Trauma News.\u201d)<\/p>\n

The list of those traumatized is long as Mr. Magyar promises to remove what he calls the \u201cpuppets of the old regime.\u201d<\/p>\n

TV2 Group, a private broadcaster, fired its news director, a Fidesz loyalist who heavily slanted news in favor of Mr. Orban, and canceled a particularly venomous program, Tenyek, promising a \u201crenewal\u201d of its approach and \u201cto provide a news service that meets expected professional standards.\u201d<\/p>\n

The broadcaster is controlled by Lorinc Meszaros, a childhood friend of Mr. Orban\u2019s and former boiler fitter who, thanks largely to state contracts, became one of Hungary\u2019s wealthiest tycoons.<\/p>\n

M1, the main state television channel, which never featured Tisza candidates during the campaign except to insult them, has suddenly started giving extensive airtime to Mr. Magyar, who has denounced its news division as a \u201cfactory of lies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among the most traumatized sectors is the sprawling network of research groups and academic bodies that organized conferences in praise of Mr. Orban and pumped out material reviling the European Union, the Hungarian-born financier George Soros and liberals in general.<\/p>\n

Szazadveg, a lavishly funded pro-Fidesz research organization, announced on Tuesday that it was going through a \u201cchange in focus\u201d with a smaller staff.<\/p>\n

Effectively financed by the state through nominally independent foundations filled with Orban loyalists, this galaxy of right-wing groups turned Budapest into a mecca for MAGA Republicans from the United States and for like-minded Europeans who describe themselves as \u201canti-woke.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hungary\u2019s election \u201cis a disaster for us,\u201d Eva Vlaardingerbroek, a Dutch anti-immigration campaigner and regular visitor to Budapest, said in a despondent video<\/a> posted on social media.<\/p>\n

In March, she gave a speech at what might have been the last annual gathering in Budapest of the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, a MAGA-aligned American organization.<\/p>\n

CPAC denies receiving money from the Hungarian budget. But a sponsor of its annual Budapest conclave, the Center for Fundamental Rights, received government money through a foundation controlled by Fidesz.<\/p>\n

\u201cCPAC can come to Budapest, very welcome, but not with Hungarian taxpayers\u2019 money,\u201d Mr. Magyar said after his election victory.<\/p>\n

The lopsided election result \u201csurprised everyone,\u201d said Gabor Szucs, an analyst at the Center for Fundamental Rights and a founding member of pro-Fidesz National Resistance Movement. He will sit in Parliament as a Fidesz legislator.<\/p>\n

\u201cI consider Peter Magyar dangerous,\u201d he said. \u201cFor the right, the most important thing now is to stand together, encourage one another and strengthen our community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some are resisting the abrupt shift in political winds. Hungary\u2019s president, Tamas Sulyok, selected for his largely ceremonial job in 2024 by a Fidesz-dominated Parliament, has ignored Mr. Magyar\u2019s demand that he step down. Mr. Orban asked his voters to sign an online petition: \u201cHold on, Mr. President.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fidesz\u2019s election rout has stirred deep division over how to recover. Some are even calling for a purge of its leadership, including Mr. Orban.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the same people want to rebuild Fidesz who got us to this point, we will be in big trouble,\u201d Nora Kiraly, a failed parliamentary candidate for the party, said last week in a message on Facebook pleading for a \u201ctotal overhaul.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt present there is zero self-reflection and zero realization of the fact that Hungary began to recover on the evening of April 12,\u201d she said, complaining of \u201cthreats and intimidation\u201d against dissent within the party.<\/p>\n

Fidesz operates in \u201ca kind of feudal chain of command, with no room for criticism or comments,\u201d said Gabor Hajnal-Nagy, a Fidesz member of the local council in Jaszbereny, a town east of Budapest.<\/p>\n

\u201cLoyalty to Mr. Orban is the only criterion for Fidesz members,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Since his defeat, Mr. Orban has given up his seat in Parliament but is staying on as Fidesz leader, saying he wanted to focus on rebuilding the \u201cpatriotic camp.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peter Kreko, the director of Political Capital, a Budapest research group critical of Fidesz, said Mr. Orban could take the path taken by President Trump after his election defeat in 2020, when he \u201cwas able to strengthen his position by casting himself as a victim.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Mr. Orban\u2019s party, he added, seems \u201cparalyzed,\u201d with its supporters in business, politics and academia \u201cstepping down on their own, surrendering without a single shot fired.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Orban, he added, \u201chas no chance to return to power.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The often vicious media machine built by Hungary\u2019s longtime leader Viktor Orban last week took a small step…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[132],"tags":[28058,18608,38476,422,13618,14660,3591,11947,6938,25396,25397,350],"class_list":{"0":"post-65607","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-viktor-orban","8":"tag-corruption-institutional","9":"tag-fidesz-party","10":"tag-government-contracts-and-procurement","11":"tag-hungary","12":"tag-legislatures-and-parliaments","13":"tag-magyar","14":"tag-orban","15":"tag-peter","16":"tag-politics-and-government","17":"tag-tisza-hungarian-political-party","18":"tag-viktor","19":"tag-viktor-orban"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116553748568797687","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}