{"id":377180,"date":"2026-04-13T10:29:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T10:29:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/377180\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T10:29:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T10:29:16","slug":"hungary-pms-stunning-election-loss-has-ripple-effects-for-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/377180\/","title":{"rendered":"Hungary PM’s stunning election loss has ripple effects for Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

The big election over the weekend was in a small European country nearly half a world away from Washington, but the defeat of Hungary’s leader Viktor Orb\u00e1n<\/a> has significant reverberations in the United States.<\/p>\n

That’s because president Donald Trump and many US conservatives have long embraced Orb\u00e1n, who has become an icon among the global right for his anti-immigrant stance. <\/p>\n

The American president’s agenda has striking parallels with the way the Hungarian leader used the levers of government to tilt the media, judiciary and electoral system to keep his party in power for 16 years.<\/p>\n

Trump supported Orb\u00e1n\u2019s reelection bid and even dispatched vice president JD Vance to Budapest last week \u2014 in the midst of the Iran war \u2014 to stump for the incumbent.<\/p>\n

Orb\u00e1n’s loss was a reminder of how the war has diminished Trump’s ability to help allied politicians overseas, as well as of the limited ability of leaders to use their power to tilt voting in their direction in an age of discontent over incumbents of all ideological stripes.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A man waves a Hungarian flag as he celebrates in the streets after the announcement of partial results of the Hungarian parliamentary election in Budapest (Denes Erdos\/AP)<\/p>\n

\u201cOppositions can win despite a tilted playing field,\u201d said Steven Levitsky, a politics professor at Harvard and coauthor of the book How Democracies Die. <\/p>\n

\u201cDemocracies are facing many challenges in many parts of the world, but so are autocracies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Orb\u00e1n\u2019s defeat has immediate global implications because he was the European leader closest to Russian president Vladimir Putin and had blocked European Union aid to Ukraine, which is defending itself after Russia’s 2022 invasion.<\/p>\n

His fall was celebrated by both Democrats and Republicans, some of whom criticised their own administration for such overt support for the Hungarian leader.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t fiddle-paddle in other democracies\u2019 elections,\u201d Republican representative Don Bacon of Nebraska said on the social media site X.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe freedom-loving people of Hungary have voted decisively in favour of democracy and the rule of law,\u201d posted Republican senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi.<\/p>\n

\"Republican<\/p>\n

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference held at Trump Tower, September, 6, 2024 in New York. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union, is part of the wing of the American right that embraced Orb\u00e1n. <\/p>\n

The Conservative Political Action Conference, which Schlapp’s group hosts, held its first European session in Budapest and has made Hungary a regular destination.<\/p>\n

Orban was a featured speaker at the group’s conference in Dallas in 2022.<\/p>\n

Schlapp said there’s an easy explanation for Orb\u00e1n’s loss.<\/p>\n

\u201cEventually, democracies just want change,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn democracies, you don’t have kings, and the people in the end speak.\u201d<\/p>\n

“The people of Hungary were saying, ‘We’re having a difficult time with inflation, the economy and the war. Let’s try the new guy,’\u201d Schlapp said, noting that he backs Trump’s Iran war but the turmoil it’s created, especially in European energy markets, hurt Orb\u00e1n.<\/p>\n

\"Hungarian<\/p>\n

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban waves has he walks onto stage to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

Diana Sosoaca, a far-right member of the European Parliament from Romania, on Sunday (local time) called Vance’s Hungarian visit \u201ca big mistake\u201d given widespread revulsion at the Iran war on the continent.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou invite a representative of the United States of America, who created the big disorder in this world?\u201d Sosoaca said in an interview posted by the Kremlin-controlled network RT, formerly known as Russia Today. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the biggest mistake he could do before the elections.\u201d<\/p>\n

How Orb\u00e1n consolidated power<\/p>\n

An anti-communist activist in his youth, Orb\u00e1n was initially elected prime minister in 1998 but took a turn to the right after being voted out in 2002. <\/p>\n

Upon returning to office in 2010, Orb\u00e1n and his Fidesz party implemented a legal framework to consolidate authority that he and his allies had developed while he was out of power.<\/p>\n

\"Hungary's<\/p>\n

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban prepares to cast his ballot (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

Orb\u00e1n embraced what he dubbed \u201cilliberal democracy,\u201d building a barrier on Hungary’s southern border to block migrants from Africa and Asia who were moving northward through Europe. <\/p>\n

He and his party stifled LGBTQ+ rights, cracked down on freedom of the press and undermined judicial independence.<\/p>\n

Orb\u00e1n cemented his power when his Fidesz party won enough seats in Parliament during the 2010 global recession to rewrite the country’s constitution. <\/p>\n

They restructured the judiciary to funnel appointments to the bench through party loyalists, redrew legislative districts to make it much harder for Fidesz members to lose elections and helped push Hungary’s media companies to be sold to tycoons allied with Orban. The European Union has declared Hungary an \u201celectoral autocracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"President<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump, right, meets with Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban in the Cabinet Room of the White House (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

Orb\u00e1n backers have scoffed at suggestions that the Hungarian leader is an enemy of democracy, and on Sunday (local time), he quickly conceded his loss. <\/p>\n

Democrats have worried that Trump will try to use his own executive power to tilt November’s midterm elections or the 2028 presidential vote to his party, much as Trump tried to use his official powers to overturn Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 presidential election.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost importantly for American voters, even a guy who rigs the system can be defeated when the people unite and turn out against him,\u201d said Ian Bassin of Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan group that says it combats authoritarianism.<\/p>\n

Democrats weigh in<\/p>\n

Democratic representative Ro Khanna of California took the opportunity to jab at Vance: \u201cYour ally Orban conceded. In 2028, will you @JDVance follow suit if you lose?\u201d he posted.<\/p>\n

Levitsky said defenders of democracy shouldn\u2019t take too much comfort from Orb\u00e1n\u2019s loss, noting that in some ways, Trump has been more oppressive. <\/p>\n

He cited Trump\u2019s use of the Justice Department to investigate political opponents and the shooting deaths of protesters by immigration officers — steps that Orban\u2019s government never took, Levitsky said.<\/p>\n

But senator Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, said he sees parallels between Trump’s and Orban\u2019s political projects, as well as the potential fate of their parties at the polls.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was essentially doing what Donald Trump is trying to do here in the United States,\u201d Van Hollen said of Orban. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy read of the election is that the people of Hungary rejected that, just like people in the United States are rejecting that here at home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump made no public comments today about the election results in Hungary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The big election over the weekend was in a small European country nearly half a world away from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[65,42,43,64,40,38,41,39,1745,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-377180","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-north-america","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories","16":"tag-uk-europe","17":"tag-us-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}