Orb\u00e1n, who has led Hungary for 16 years straight, took a somber tone throughout the interview, describing the aftermath of the election in personal terms. \u201cI felt pain and emptiness,\u201d he said, adding that he has been throwing himself into his work as \u201coccupational therapy\u201d to cope with the shock. \u201cEven I thought we were going to win,\u201d he admitted.<\/p>\n
Magyar has already begun signaling a break with Orb\u00e1n\u2019s nationalist-populist rule, pledging to relocate the prime minister\u2019s office<\/a> from Budapest\u2019s Carmelite Palace. Orb\u00e1n will also skip next week\u2019s informal European Council meeting in Cyprus<\/a>, according to an EU official who spoke to POLITICO, emphasizing how quickly his long tenure is drawing to a close.<\/p>\n Orb\u00e1n didn\u2019t duck responsibility for the defeat in his interview. \u201cIt\u2019s me. I am the president of the party,\u201d he said, adding that he took the outcome \u201c100 percent on myself.\u201d He acknowledged Fidesz had failed to connect with the electorate: \u201cI have to admit that the opponent\u2019s message was stronger,\u201d he said, referring to Magyar\u2019s promise of change<\/a> centered on rooting out corruption and dismantling Orb\u00e1n\u2019s political machine.<\/p>\n But the defeated prime minister said he wasn\u2019t going anywhere. His defeat requires a \u201ccomplete renewal\u201d of Fidesz and the broader Hungarian right, he declared, including a full overhaul of the party\u2019s leadership and representation in parliament. A party assembly is set for April 28.<\/p>\n \u201cIf my community tells me to keep to the backbench, I\u2019ll do that,\u201d Orb\u00e1n said. \u201cBut if they tell me to take the team out to the field as a captain, I\u2019ll be there too.\u201d<\/p>\n J\u00falia Vadler contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Orb\u00e1n, who has led Hungary for 16 years straight, took a somber tone throughout the interview, describing the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":733352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[56349,90,2850,50,2853,22197,125,16815,103],"class_list":["post-733351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-cyprus","tag-elections","tag-hungary","tag-news","tag-parliament","tag-peter-magyar","tag-rights","tag-viktor-orban","tag-world"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116417448289048086","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=733351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/733352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=733351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=733351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=733351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}