Viktor Orbán’s 16 years in power is over and a system condemned as an “electoral autocracy” lies in tatters, defeated by a 45-year-old former party insider who convinced a majority of Hungarians to bring it to an end.
“We did it,” Péter Magyar told a crowd of cheering supporters beside the River Danube, overlooking Budapest’s magnificent parliament on the other side. “Together we overthrew the Hungarian regime.”
Preliminary election results, based on more than 98% of counted votes, put his Tisza party on course for an extraordinary 138 seats, with Orbán’s Fidesz on 55 and the far-right Our Homeland on six.
The landslide will not only allow Magyar to overturn Orbán’s increasingly unpopular domestic policies, but reset Hungary’s global relationships.
Orbán has been a close partner of both US President Donald Trump – earning an in-person appearance from US Vice-President JD Vance in the final week of the campaign – and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and he had become a big thorn in the side of the EU and Ukraine.
Magyar, on the other hand, stood on a platform of distancing Hungary from Russia in favour of more cordial ties with the EU and Ukraine.
For two years, Magyar took his burgeoning movement around villages, town squares and cities, rallying Hungarians who had had enough of the cronyism and corruption that had become endemic in Hungary over years.
“Never before in the history of democratic Hungary have so many people voted – and no single party has ever received such a strong mandate,” he said on Sunday night, after a record 79.5% of the electorate turned out to vote.
Orbán’s rule was built up through four successive election victories and sweeping majorities, but it became clear it was over in a matter of minutes.