{"id":393939,"date":"2026-04-15T19:35:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T19:35:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/393939\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T19:35:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T19:35:16","slug":"does-viktor-orbans-defeat-signal-a-wider-backlash-against-the-forces-of-darkness-world-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/393939\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Viktor Orb\u00e1n\u2019s defeat signal a wider backlash against \u2018the forces of darkness\u2019? | World news"},"content":{"rendered":"

When future historians come to write about the stunning electoral overthrow of Viktor Orb\u00e1n on 12 April 2026, let\u2019s hope they devote at least footnotes to zebras and golden toilet brushes. The zebras were spotted by drones on the sprawling grounds of a countryside palace belonging to Orb\u00e1n\u2019s extended family. The 72 gilded toilet brushes were said to have been bought at a cost of almost \u20ac10,000, for a lavish renovation of Hungary\u2019s central bank. For Orb\u00e1n\u2019s opponents, such excesses became symbols of the rampant corruption among cronies of Orb\u00e1n\u2019s ruling party Fidesz, which drained Hungary\u2019s economy and earned its ranking<\/a> as the most crooked country in the EU, as Ashifa Kassam and Flora Garamvolgyi reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the end, it was disgust with corruption and how that corruption affected people\u2019s livelihoods that were the main factors behind Sunday\u2019s election rout<\/a>. But the landslide achieved by Peter Magyar\u2019s Tisza party \u2013 despite an electoral system designed to favour Fidesz \u2013 suggests that these eye-popping details were merely the last straws for a population desperate to reclaim their country as a functioning democracy.<\/p>\n

Orb\u00e1n\u2019s rightwing populist rule has cast a shadow over Europe for almost 16 years. That he went without a fight, within hours of the polls closing, was the best news the continent\u2019s beleaguered liberal democratic leaders<\/a> could have hoped for.<\/p>\n

How will the end of Orban\u2019s self-styled \u201cilliberal democracy\u201d now reverberate beyond Hungary\u2019s borders? Despite all the caveats and uncertainties, a panel of experts I commissioned on this question is a hopeful read<\/a>. As our Guardian Europe columnist Nathalie Tocci summed up: \u201cThis marks a victory for liberalism in the world, even more than in Hungary itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Historian Timothy Garton Ash, who covered the collapse of communism in Hungary in 1989, when Orb\u00e1n was \u201ca fiery young student leader calling for the Russians to go home\u201d, echoed similar hope in his Guardian column<\/a>. Garton Ash, who was among the joyful, almost disbelieving<\/a> crowds on the banks of the Danube on Sunday night, says the critical question is whether Hungary can become the first country in the world to pull its democracy back from such far-reaching populist erosion \u201cand whether Europe has the political will and imagination to enable it to succeed\u201d.<\/p>\n

Good news for Europe<\/p>\n

After 16 years of Hungary behavng like a rogue state within the EU, an important reset<\/a> is now on the cards. Orb\u00e1n\u2019s Hungary had lost all trust, becoming a geopolitical Trojan horse, or \u201cPutin\u2019s man in Brussels\u201d, as Garton Ash puts it.<\/p>\n

The incoming prime minister is no liberal. Magyar \u2013 profiled here<\/a> \u2013 was in the Fidesz government before breaking ranks in 2024.<\/p>\n

And while unseating Orb\u00e1n is one thing, ridding the country of Orb\u00e1nism is another. Poland\u2019s recent experience<\/a> shows how difficult it is to restore the rule of law after years of populist rule.<\/p>\n

But Magyar has 70% of the seats in parliament, the crucial \u201csupermajority\u201d needed to dismantle Orb\u00e1n\u2019s system, and is committed to restoring democratic institutions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On Monday he vowed to pursue those who \u201cplundered, looted, betrayed, indebted and ruined\u201d his country. Declaring an outbreak of peace with the EU, (which most Hungarians appear to want<\/a>) he said: \u201cwe are not going there [to Brussels] to fight for the sake of fighting\u201d.<\/p>\n

Even if he initially only seeks a limited re-set to secure the release of \u20ac17bn in frozen EU funds for Hungary<\/a>, the constructive approach his stated plan implies could be transformational.<\/p>\n

Bad news for Russia<\/p>\n

\u2018We cannot change geography\u2019 \u2026 Hungary\u2019s new prime minister, P\u00e9ter Magyar. Photograph: M\u00e1rton M\u00f3nus\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Orb\u00e1n\u2019s exit is not the outcome Russia wanted: Vladimir Putin has lost his closest ally in Europe. <\/a>Ukraine\u2019s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy<\/a> called it \u201cthe victory of light over darkness\u201d.<\/p>\n

In his first post-election press conference, Magyar played down expectations of any dramatic rupture with Moscow. \u201cIf Vladimir Putin calls, I\u2019ll pick up the phone,\u201d he said, adding: \u201cWe cannot change geography.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the campaign, however, he framed the vote as a choice between east and west, and Hungarians decisively chose the western path.<\/p>\n

The incoming PM is not keen on Ukraine joining the EU any time soon and all eyes are on what terms he sets for lifting Orb\u00e1n\u2019s veto of a crucial \u20ac90bn loan for Ukraine<\/a>. \u201cHe was extremely cautious on this, pre-election,\u201d said Mujtaba Rahman of the Eurasia group consultancy. \u201cBut without the need to appease Fidesz voters, Hungary will gradually move into the European mainstream.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mourning for the global Maga movement<\/p>\n

Viktor Orb\u00e1n and US vice-president JD Vance at a pre-election rally in Budapest. Photograph: Jakub Porzycki\/NurPhoto\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Donald Trump, Orb\u00e1n\u2019s other superpower backer, invested unusual amounts of political capital in keeping Orb\u00e1n in power. Hungary has, after all, been a laboratory for the global Maga movement and offered the Trumpian project in the US a blueprint. The loss of the movement\u2019s spiritual leader<\/a> and Hungarian stronghold is a blow.<\/p>\n

Conversely, as Robert Tait suggested<\/a>, it carries \u201csymbolic and psychological significance for American politics\u201d out of all proportion for Hungary\u2019s modest size and distance from the US.<\/p>\n

Orb\u00e1n\u2019s ejection could interrupt Trump\u2019s culture war against liberal democracy in Europe, too. It deprives the European far right of a network of Orb\u00e1n-funded patronage via thinktanks and research bodies.<\/p>\n

Yet Cas Mudde, a political scientist who has devoted more time than most to studying the far right, cautioned against assuming that Hungary\u2019s election marks the start of a trend and that a similar defeat for the eurosceptic far right can be expected for example in the French presidential election next year. Hungary\u2019s contest was fought principally on domestic issues. Nevertheless, the outcome disproved the fatalistic discourse that \u201cwildly overstates\u201d the weakness of democracy. Another bonus Mudde noted: there are, for now, no European far-right disrupters of Orb\u00e1n\u2019s stature who can fill his shoes.<\/p>\n

Lessons for liberals<\/p>\n

Democrats and progressives should draw the right conclusions from Magyar\u2019s win, says Zsuzsanna V\u00e9gh, of the German Marshall Fund of the United States thinktank. \u201cWhile this was a very consequential election, the result offers no forecast for other European elections in the coming year. Orb\u00e1n\u2019s defeat was driven first and foremost by domestic factors such as the cost of living.\u201d<\/p>\n

As sociologist Tibor Dessewffy, of E\u00f6tv\u00f6s Lor\u00e1nd University in Budapest, put it: \u201cIt turns out that hospital supplies mattered more to voters in Hungary than conspiracy theories about Brussels.\u201d<\/p>\n

For many progressives, however, the nearly 80% turnout and emphatic margin of victory in Hungary is uplifting. It shows that if people are galvanised to oppose authoritarianism, they will.<\/p>\n

Tellingly, V\u00e9gh says, Magyar veered away from far-right topics or attempts to outflank populist discourse, focusing instead on the cost of living, healthcare and other domestic issues.<\/p>\n

Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee<\/a> is nevertheless hopeful that Hungarian voters have rolled back the \u201cforces of darkness\u201d. Whether Orb\u00e1n\u2019s defeat ignites a fire across the continent could become clear within months. The slate of key elections next year includes Italy, Spain, Poland and France. As Polly advised, progressives should probably make the most of the good news now.<\/p>\n

To receive the complete version of This Is Europe in your inbox every Wednesday, please subscribe here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When future historians come to write about the stunning electoral overthrow of Viktor Orb\u00e1n on 12 April 2026,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-393939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}