The Hungarian elections have significance far beyond Hungary's borders. Not only because the current prime minister occasionally manages to paralyze the European Union with various forms of blackmail involving veto rights. For many, he has also become a symbol and a model. Even here, government politicians compete over who can honor Viktor Orbán with the more bizarre comparison: Foreign Minister Petr Macinka, for example, said that people like Michelangelo Buonarroti are born once every five hundred years, and one such person now presides over the Hungarian government. As a long-time courtier of Václav Klaus, Macinka apparently has experience in formulating quite bizarre flattery. For Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, Viktor Orbán was during the previous regime “actually a kind of Václav Havel.” Given who Babiš was at that time himself, his admiration for Orbán and Havel should be understood – just as it is, that he cannot distinguish them very well.

The bonanza for Orbán’s regime has been European funds. While Poland—across political parties—managed to more or less utilize them for extensive modernization, in the Czech Republic and Hungary, they became sources for massive exploitation and embezzlement.

But Orbán does not draw support only from Central Europe. He has been expressed in Budapest by Argentine President Javier Milei and Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as well as the chairwoman of Alternative for Germany, Alice Weidel. Trump’s vice president J. D. Vance is also expected to visit before the elections. For national conservatives leaning into the far right, Orbán is a symbol and an inspiration. If Hungary were a bit larger, it would be the Soviet Union of this “reactionary international.” Originally, it also looked like the American president might appear in pre-election Budapest. But he now has somewhat different concerns, and mainly, he is usually reluctant to be seen with someone who is losing. And Orbán faces a very serious threat of defeat this time.

Orbánism as political logic

The leader of the anti-regime youth and hero of the late 1980s demonstrations, Viktor Orbán has been Prime Minister since 2010, that is, for sixteen years. His party, drawing on the legacy of former anti-communist movements, still bears the name Alliance of Young Democrats (Fidesz), even though for those who remember those glorious years, both Orbán and the party are over sixty. He was already Prime Minister in 1998–2002, and later characterized that four-year term with the words: “We were in government, but not in power.” When he subsequently lost, he responded to the defeat with a characteristic phrase: “The homeland cannot be in opposition.”

The path to a triumphant return led through a deep crisis in the second half of the 2000s, including extensive and violently suppressed protests in 2006. These combined a commemoration of the Soviet invasion of 1956 with a protest against the hypocrisy and corruption of the current Hungarian establishment, symbolized by socialist Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány, who combined communist past with significant privatization wealth. He also entered history with the words from a closed rally: “We lied in the morning, lied at noon, lied in the evening.” Post-communists and liberals were co-responsible not only for a less-than-successful transformation but also for the massive economic crisis of the late 2000s. Orbán countered them with impressive rhetoric that linked anti-communism with criticism of the transformation and nationalism. He won the elections triumphantly and returned to the premiership—with a constitutional majority that allowed him to change the country. He was no longer just in government; he was in power.

And he made efforts. He managed to marginalize the opposition and independent media and created a new regime. He even found catchy names for it. The most resonant was “illiberal democracy,” which became a battle cry from the critical concept of Farid Zakaria. This phrase cleverly suggested a falsehood—that “liberal democracy” means rule by liberals (and thus restriction of democracy)—and at the same time created the impression that this liberal tyranny would be broken by shedding various restrictions meant to protect minority rights, political pluralism, and checks on power. Democracy, instead of these, would mean unrestricted “rule of the people,” delegated to their tribune. (Iliberal democracy is often translated into Czech literally as “illiberal democracy.” It is confusing—just as we do not translate “irrationality” simply as “nonsense” or “irrationality,” we are well aware that negating rationality creates a new quality. The same applies to “illiberal democracy.”)

Orbán described his regime as a “system of national cooperation.” Lawyer Kim Scheppele spoke of a “Frankenstein state,” and political scientists Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes expanded on her metaphor: Orbán borrows various political institutions from different contexts and creates a bizarre collage that limits the options of political opposition and keeps him in power. As historian Balázs Trencsényi and economist János Mátyás Kovács add, it is precisely the logic of collage and bricolage that characterizes Orbán. He emphasizes the vision of national unity, but this unity is colorful (let’s allow a longer quote, because orbánism is accurately and vividly characterized):

“It offers neoliberal economic policies to foreign investors and state support to domestic businesses, a springboard for undermining EU and NATO unity by Russian strongmen; traditional norms to old-fashioned conservatives, permanent mobilization for those seeking social solidarity, harassment of civil society for those nostalgically looking back to Horthy-era and Kádár-era police states; defense of Judeo-Christian heritage against Islam from non-traditionalist Jewish factions and charismatic neo-Protestants; political religion with a hero cult and a quasi-eschatological narrative of collective sin and salvation for secularized post-Christians… anti-cosmopolitan campaigns with racist undertones, a new reincarnation of interwar radical right; ethnist amusement parks for Western supporters of white supremacy, but also attractive locations for African and Asian students with cheap European university diplomas; tax havens and gateways to the EU for Chinese, Israeli, Russian, Syrian, and Turkish businessmen; a pseudo-regional power for global supporters of anti-liberalism and national egoism; and at the same time, a compliant and cooperative economic subregion of the German industrial space for technocrats who believe in non-ideological economic dependence. The system of national cooperation treats apolitical social groups rather liberally, leaving them room for most of their private decisions, including lifestyle and sexual orientation, although regime influencers provoke and humiliate their ideals. Even worse is the fate of liberal and leftist (and later also right-wing but anti-government) activists and their organizations: they are condemned to face a whole repertoire of defamation campaigns in government-controlled media and hostile institutional environments.”

With this differentiated support, Orbán built a substantial support base. Some authors, like Béla Greskovits, trace the roots of this approach back to his 1987 diploma thesis, which analyzed the Polish opposition movement using Antonio Gramsci’s concepts and concluded: “In contrast to Western Europe, where movements usually grow out of civil society, in Poland civil society was created by movements.” Orbán also transferred the idea that civil society is created through political action—whether movements, political parties, or political leaders—into the post-communist context. When pushed into opposition, he relied on extensive “civil circles” movements, which he reactivated in recent years and tried to mobilize for cyberspace as “digital civil circles.”

He emphasized not only building popular support (and homogenizing media) but also creating an ideological foundation. As political economist Gábor Scheiring shows, Orbán invested public money into a number of national-conservative think tanks. The largest of these, the Matyás Korvin College, combined a university, a think tank, and a propaganda institution. Orbán funded it from the budget and also gave it stakes in some state-owned companies. In 2021, this amounted to 1.7 billion USD, more than 1 percent of Hungary’s GDP and more than the annual budget for higher education. With such a budget, he could offer generous scholarships to conservative thinkers and publicists like Rod Dreher or even employ them as heads of Brussels offices, such as Frank Furedi.

These people then give interviews to international conservative media (in Czech, for example, for the weekly Echo) and vividly tell how Hungary is a great country and Orbán a great statesman. Hungarian conservatives invited Czech historian Miroslav Vaněk to speak in Brussels, and after he lost a more serious platform due to a scandal involving long-term sexual harassment of students, he happily described the horrors of history as allegedly damaged by victim culture. But the great figure of Czech oral historiography naturally only plays a minor role. According to Scheiring, Orbán, using the Hungarian state budget and contacts among some British and American conservatives, managed to create a “transatlantic far-right ecosystem,” which is becoming one of the most prominent sources of Trumpism in the European Union.

Public campaigns have become characteristic of orbánism. Viktor Orbán skillfully stirs national traumas—beyond the memory of Soviet occupation and the 1956 massacre, even more so the Treaty of Trianon in 1920, which dismantled the former Hungary and deprived it of about two-thirds of its territory and population. From defending the “Hungarian nation” (especially through massive distribution of Hungarian citizenship to members of Hungarian minorities, especially in Slovakia, Romania, and Ukraine), Orbán has shifted primarily to “defending Western civilization” and inciting against refugees and their supporters during the migration crisis.

A privileged role was played by American financier George Soros, of Hungarian Jewish origin, who later supported dissent and civil society in Central Europe. Orbán expelled his Central European University from Hungary, and the campaign against him had many anti-Semitic features. Its strategists were American political operatives Arthur Finkelstein and George Birnbaum, who had previously worked mainly for American Republicans and Israeli nationalist Netanyahu. Relatively late, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the targets of hatred also became gays and lesbians. When I asked my Hungarian friends why Orbán turned against them just now, they cynically replied: “He simply had no one else left.”

Greed of a polygarch

Cynicism is appropriate. Orbán is a political creature; ideology matters to him, and he claims to dedicate one afternoon a week to reading political texts. But his system is also corrupt. Analyst and former politician Bálint Magyar described it as an “octopus” and a “post-communist mafia state,” where instead of a criminal “organized underworld,” “organized superworld” rules. It is important to distinguish between “oligarchs” and “poligarchs”: oligarchs use their essentially legitimate wealth to illegitimately influence politics, while poligarchs turn their political power into illegitimate wealth. (I am simplifying the author’s scheme here: the connection between political and economic power ultimately questions the legitimacy of both property and authority.)

While the Czech Republic is a country of oligarchs like Strnada, Křetínský, Babiš, and formerly Kellner, Hungary is primarily a country of poligarchs. While Klaus implemented his program of transferring societal wealth into the hands of Czech privatizers already in the 1990s, Orbán built the Hungarian bourgeoisie after 2010. Perhaps that’s why Hungarian oligarchs are somewhat poorer relatives compared to Czech ones, many of whom are literally derived from political power. The richest Hungarian, Lőrinc Mészáros, is a childhood friend of Orbán, and as he himself stated, “In how far I’ve come, certainly God, luck, and Viktor Orbán’s personality played a role.” The Prime Minister’s son-in-law, István Tiborcz, also made it into the top twenty richest Hungarians. He emphasizes that he helped his success regardless of influential patronage. The 2022 documentary Dynasty offers a different perspective; it is also available with Czech subtitles. Orbán’s childhood friend and oligarchic ally was also Lajos Simicska, who, however, tried to oppose him. He spectacularly lost and that meant not only the end of his political ambitions but also the end of his business.

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The new generation of Hungarian political economists somewhat revises the diagnosis of a “post-communist mafia state.” Adam Fábry speaks of “authoritarian neoliberalism” and emphasizes that, in the context of the Panama Papers and other scandals, it is absurd to perceive corruption and mafia practices as characteristic specifically of “post-communism” or even authoritarianism. Gábor Scheiring, in turn, highlights that authoritarianism functions not only because it gives the wealthy an “accumulative state” and opportunities for enrichment but also because it balances feelings of insecurity, threat, and precarity among broad social layers. The pro-corruption and intertwined economic layers in Hungary are a fact that can be explained in various ways, but it is hard to escape it. For several years now, Hungary has “won” the Transparency International corruption perception index within the EU.

The bonanza for Orbán’s regime has been European funds. While Poland—across political parties—has managed to more or less utilize them for extensive modernization, in the Czech Republic and Hungary, they became sources for massive exploitation and embezzlement. While in the Czech Republic they seem more like sources of decay for “traditional” parties and their partial transformation into confederations of regional mafias, in Hungary, European money consolidated a centralized regime of the national conservative. This is a failure of the European Union, which spoke little and too late about the abuse of subsidies. When accusations of misuse became a major issue during the conflict, it was argued that these were politically motivated accusations. Moreover, Orbán long had political cover from Germany, as he offered cheap labor from Hungarians to German companies, which then became his influential advocates in Angela Merkel’s court.

…and his challenger

The main enemy of Orbán has become fatigue. After sixteen years in power, you get tired, even if you do not provoke with opulent palaces renamed “Orbán’s Versailles” and excuses from your father that he earned it through decades of work in a quarry… Polls mostly indicate that most Hungarians under the age of sixty-five want change. The turning point was the Budapest Pride at the beginning of last summer. The regime mobilized all its strength against it and threatened, among other things, with massive fines and the application of the foreign agents law. It only resulted in the Pride becoming a demonstration of pride and defiance with over a hundred thousand participants. After this lesson, Orbán retreated from the announced massive repressions. And that marked the beginning of a period when his regime is on the ropes.

At first glance, the situation seems simple—on one side, authoritarian, nationalist, and populist Orbán; on the other, his noble, pro-European, and liberal-democratic challenger. But it is not that simple at all. Péter Magyar gave Hungarians hope that they could overthrow Orbán in elections. However, his politics and personality are certainly not without controversy.

Lawyer Magyar entered politics as an organizer of the 2006 demonstrations, from which Orbán drew a significant part of his legitimacy. He belonged to Fidesz, worked in semi-state companies, and for many years was the husband of Orbán’s minister Judit Varga. When this minister, along with President Katalin Novák, was swept away by a scandal involving a pardon for a pedophile, Magyar declared that both politicians were just scapegoats for Fidesz’s failures—and launched extensive accusations. Testimony about the corruption of the system sounded very convincing from an insider and drew attention.

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After Magyar, all possible and impossible opposition parties tried to jump on him. But he sent them all packing and decided to run alone. His party Tisza (an acronym for Respect and Freedom, but also a reference to “the most Hungarian river”) suggests an almost leaderly principle, with members including contenders for ministerial roles practically not speaking to the media, and the show mainly resting on the leader’s shoulders. According to political scientist Eszter Kováts, it also attracts by his ability to clearly ask for power.

It is not entirely clear what his party offers politically. According to Professor of Gender Studies Andrea Pető, Tisza is “a Christian conservative party, very similar to Poland’s Law and Justice.” Journalist Arpád Szoltez responds to the question whether it could become Orbán 2 by saying that “it could become something even worse than Orbán 2”—the system is already built, relatively young, sharp, and unlikely to stumble…

This political classification, however, is questionable. As political scientist Eszter Kováts warns, the core of Magyar’s offer is technocratic. He emphasizes mainly economic problems, focuses on their solutions, and promises that things will simply get better under him. He avoids clear political positions and emphasizes mainly factuality and competence. This is often derived from business; one of his shadow ministers is former Shell manager István Kapitány. Magyar somewhat resembles Andrej Babiš in his early days, when he promised everything to everyone and did not fully commit politically.

Only some psychopath can save us now?

Magyar has managed to fully marginalize most of the existing opposition: according to most polls, it looks like Orbán’s Fidesz and Magyar’s Tisza will sit in parliament—and probably only the fascist Our Homeland of László Toroczkai. The worst post-election scenarios are those in which this shameless far right, against which Okamura and Rajchl are just friendly teddy bears, becomes the decisive swing vote. With a bit of exaggeration and a somewhat Czech-centric perspective, we can say that after the elections, the Hungarian parliament will probably include Orbán’s current ally Babiš, as his alternative, the equivalent of Babiš in the 2010s, and a figure reminiscent of the forgotten Adam B. Bartoš.

Eszter Kováts shows that Magyar has surpassed the existing opposition—and also civil society. It was not that difficult. Civil society faces numerous attacks, and the political opposition is decimated. The electoral system (bizarrely combining proportional and majoritarian methods, creating a large bonus for the winner) forced them to unite despite ideological differences. But it was difficult. In the 2022 elections, they adopted a different strategy than Magyar’s, forming a rainbow coalition from greens to the then far-right, now more conservative, Jobbik. The regime’s propaganda had no trouble portraying Márki-Zay as a person who speaks faster than he thinks, and creating the impression that in a time of crisis and upcoming war in Ukraine, the country needs stronger and more experienced leadership. Orbán achieved another victory, summarized by the phrase that “it was probably visible even from the Moon and definitely from Brussels.” The fragmented opposition in the Hungarian parliament manifests significant political pluralism—but even greater impotence.

That’s why Péter Magyar’s offer is so eagerly accepted—finally offering a real chance. He is forgiven many things—his somewhat leaderly style (especially since he can also make fun of himself), programmatic ambiguity, and even accusations of domestic violence, which regime propaganda bombarded him with (relating to his marriage to Judit Varga, which ended in divorce in 2023). Opponents of the regime, including liberals and feminists, shrug: surely, Péter Magyar is probably a bit of a psychopath, and the accusations of domestic violence may well be true. But who else than someone at least somewhat psychopathic could withstand the intense pressure and slander campaigns of the regime? To move a mountain, you need dynamite.

If Péter Magyar succeeds, his victory will be burdened with very diverse, often even contradictory expectations. Many things cannot help but disappoint—and perhaps that will be the source of a conflict-driven renewal of political plurality in Hungary.

Like in a bad Bond movie

But we are not there yet. Although serious polls speak of a significant lead for the opposition and the decisiveness with which many Orbán voters are simply fed up, surprises or the significance of those voters who decide at the last moment cannot be ruled out. Moreover, Orbán’s regime has long shown that it will not give up without a fight. In autumn, it tried an unusual tactic: suddenly, regime media were open to opposition voices—except when it came to Magyar and Tisza. When the gamble on fragmentation or personal discrediting of Péter Magyar failed, Orbán decided to focus on what helped him in previous elections: the Ukrainian card.

Orbán has long been a critic of Ukraine’s president. Hungary is not only dependent on Russian energy but has also long opened itself to Russia (which is building a new nuclear block at Paks in Hungary) and China (the strategic logic of which is captured by economic sociologists Ágnes Gagyi and Tamás Gerőcs). Orbán’s war has alienated him from his previous allies in Central Europe—while he emphasized Hungary’s immediate economic interests, the Polish, Czech, and Slovak governments stressed the Russian threat.

In all three countries, governments have changed meanwhile. In Poland, relations worsened further, not only because the new government is even more resolute in supporting Ukraine but also because Orbán granted political asylum to two politicians from the former national conservative government prosecuted for corruption and illegal espionage of the opposition with Israeli Pegasus spyware (Orbán’s government apparently also used it for monitoring the opposition). In Slovakia and the Czech Republic, however, Orbán found allies for his nationalist, egoistic approach.

The war in Ukraine has become a key issue. When Hungary was flooded with billboards showing a golden toilet of a Ukrainian oligarch, into which Magyar, along with Ursula von der Leyen and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, threw money from European taxpayers, the opposition leader could still joke about it and take a photo at the billboard. But the campaign escalated. Orbán blocked an EU loan without which Ukraine will not be able to function in a few months and defend itself against the Russian invasion. Zelensky later made a statement exactly the kind the Hungarian prime minister needed in his campaign: if the blockade continues, he will give Orbán’s contact to his soldiers, and they will discuss the EU loan in their own way…

This did not help Ukraine’s president and pushed the Hungarian opposition into a defensive stance. It must be said that Magyar convincingly defused this threat with a firm rejection of the idea that the Ukrainian president could threaten the Hungarian prime minister in this way, whatever the circumstances. Nevertheless, Orbán decided to exploit the situation to its lowest point, including recording phone calls where he warns his close associates that they are being threatened by Ukrainians…

Meanwhile, there is a dispute over the Druzhba pipeline, the army is deployed to defend key sites, and the Hungarian police detained a Ukrainian car carrying gold and cash from a Vienna bank. According to Kyiv, it was a normal transfer to Ukraine; Orbán and his media claim it was money for the Hungarian opposition. Magyar countered with claims that Orbán is aided by Russian agents, and some Western media reports (probably originating from intelligence circles) suggest that Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó passed confidential information to Russia. What we can say for sure is that the rivalry is escalating and, in many moments, resembles a poorly written spy film.

This raises many questions about the end of the campaign. The opposition leader has already said he knows about a planned surprise for the last days: it is supposed to be a pornographic recording with his mistress. But it’s hard to say whether Orbán is planning something even more sinister. Testimony from a released police officer that secret services attempted an operation against the opposition sounds like a serious warning. Many also wonder whether Orbán will recognize the election results and try to overturn them if he fails. Imagining a Belarusian scenario in an EU country sounds unimaginable, and many serious commentators criticize such warnings as irresponsible escalation. On the other hand, we have seen many times before that what we once considered unthinkable is now possible.

What we know for certain is that Orbán, once seeking to concentrate power, has begun to see the appeal of what his liberal opponents emphasized: those infamous “checks and balances.” As Politico reminds us, even if Péter Magyar takes power, many traps await him. The Hungarian president has so far been a mostly ceremonial figure, even compared to the Czech one. But that may not be forever.

The Hungarian president is not only the commander-in-chief of the armed forces but can also (without counter-signature!) declare referenda. Last December, Fidesz MPs, already with the clear expectation that Orbán might not rule forever, strengthened the president’s veto powers and made his removal much more difficult. Fidesz loyalist Tamás Sulyok thus has a good chance to remain in office until 2029. Besides the president, there is also the Constitutional Court, whose 15 judges are all Fidesz nominees, as well as the Budget Council. This body, also composed of Orbán’s loyalists—only three of them—can veto any government budget, and if the government fails to pass a budget, the president can call early elections. Both the president and the Budget Council can be dismissed by a two-thirds parliamentary majority. If Magyar wins, the ground is prepared for many possible dramas.

Fighting for Prague in Budapest?

If Orbán actually loses and hands over power, the Czech government will lose its key ally, its Michelangelo Buonarroti, and Václav Havel all in one. A sad sight that, in such a case, would at least momentarily be, could be one of the few uplifting experiences in our current four-year inter-election period with a predominantly far-right government and a predominantly right-wing opposition. But that is by no means the most important thing.

Orbán is a real burden for the European Union. The think tank and college he supports, the Matyás Korvin College, in cooperation with Polish ultra-conservatives from Ordo Iuris, are attempting to cosplay the American Project2025 and have come up with extensive nonsense about how to “restore sovereignty of EU member states” and prioritize “national interests over self-proclaimed EU values.” But Orbán shows that we do not need grandly framed projects (this one is called “The Great Reset”). The European Union already functions as a very convenient vessel for blackmailers, especially if they can combine extortion with ideology. The question is whether the EU can afford this luxury. In a situation where both Russia and the United States clearly have an interest in humiliating or even disintegrating the EU, weakness could easily become fatal.

Given that in the upcoming German and French elections, Alternative for Germany and the National Assembly will be seriously vying for first place, it is certainly not true that national conservatism will be defeated by a single loss in Hungary, just as we have probably outgrown the idea that nationalism and “populism” are endemic diseases of the heavily burdened “post-communism.” For the global radical right, however, a electoral defeat for Orbán would at least be a symbolic blow, and a significant one at that.

But even that is not the most important thing about the upcoming Hungarian elections. The most crucial will be what they do to Hungarian society. Will they really manage to defeat Orbán in the elections and remove him from power? Can the relatively centralized Tisza cope with the strong local structures of Fidesz and the fact that the ruling party has occupied so many social institutions over the years? Will Péter Magyar fulfill his promise and dismantle the current system, or will he simply slip into Orbán’s shoes and become his successor? Sixteen years of hateful campaigns and the building of often illegitimate assets have left deep scars—can they be healed? And can political pluralism and politics as a contest of ideas be restored, or will it remain primarily a battle of powerful, masculine, ambitious figures, in which psychopathic traits are all too easy to find?

For now, it is difficult to expect anything, even just a little. If we know anything almost for certain, it is only that we, at least, can hardly advise the Hungarians on anything. Our society has not managed even much simpler tests than the Hungarian one. From a country where oligarchy, far-right extremism, and a lack of meaningful opposition are openly dominant, it is hard to give advice to people who finally have a chance to rid themselves of a national conservative poligarchic rule. But perhaps the Hungarians will have something to teach us. In four years, or maybe in sixteen.

The author is a political scientist and publicist.