Hungary on How to Topple an Elected Authoritarian
All eyes on the opposition's game plan against PM Viktor Orban
For years, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has enjoyed the admiration of his right-wing peers in other democratic countries. The method he used to gradually consolidate power and weaken his critics has become a model for other populist leaders, including U.S. President Donald Trump, who see in his rise a playbook for expanding their political power and countering the aspects of liberalism they most dislike.
In short, Orban has become the quintessential model of populist authoritarianism in 21st-century “illiberal democracies,” a term he helped popularize.
But now, as Hungary’s national elections approach next year, Orban is up against the toughest challenge he has faced in his 15 years of consecutive rule. If the center-right opposition Tisza Party under the leadership of Peter Magyar emerges victorious next spring, Hungary could again become a model—this time for those hoping to defeat far-right leaders with autocratic tendencies.
After becoming a model for the far right, Hungary could show the way to those who want to turn it back
All year long, Tisza has led Orban’s Fidesz in the polls, despite Orban’s deployment of all the levers of public power against it.
The explanation is simple: Large numbers of Hungarians are fed up with what Orban’s long rule has wrought. For many years, Orban coasted on the largesse of the European Union, whose cash infusions helped raise living standards—especially for Orban’s friends. But the results of long-term corruption and mismanagement, in addition to lingering post-pandemic inflation, have combined to sow deep popular dissatisfaction with the current government and create an opening for the opposition.
Surveys show most Hungarians are concerned with a fast-deteriorating health care system, a sputtering economy, high levels of corruption, eroded press freedoms, unaffordable living costs and the thinning veneer of democracy.
The man leading the charge to dethrone Orban is one of his former allies. Magyar, whose name in Hungarian means Hungary, has run a hyper-pragmatic campaign, focusing sharply on the specific issues driving the electorate’s discontent. That’s in marked contrast with Orban, who has thrived on stoking divisions, demonizing his critics and dwelling on inflammatory, controversial topics such as LGBTQ+ rights and migration.
Tisza, which is a Hungarian portmanteau of the Respect and Freedom Party, was barely relevant until 2024. That’s when Magyar broke with Fidesz after a particularly disturbing scandal involving a pardon by the country’s largely ceremonial president—a Fidesz member—of a man convicted of trying to cover up a pedophilia scandal in a state-run children’s home. Both the president and the attorney general who approved the pardon were forced to resign after the ensuing public outcry, which was exacerbated by the fact that Fidesz has long made defending “traditional family values” a central plank of its political agenda.
Disgusted by the scandal and Fidesz’s tepid response to it, Magyar joined Tisza, after which the party swiftly came alive.
As a strongly pro-Western and pro-European party, Tisza favors close ties with the European Union and NATO, both of which Hungary is a member, but it also advocates maintaining economic ties with Russia.
During this summer’s party congress, Magyar described an agenda designed to appeal to a large cross-section of the country. Adapting a famous line from Barack Obama, he declared, “There is no left and no right, only Hungarian.”
Magyar proposed a large-scale plan of investment in areas with direct impact on Hungarians’ quality of life. His “Hungarian New Deal” envisions an overhaul of the crippled health care system, improvements in public transportation and education, cuts in taxes for food and medicines, and higher benefits for struggling pensioners.
If that sounds expensive, Magyar’s plan for funding the reforms make them—and him—even more popular. Orban’s violations of democratic norms have put him on a collision course with the EU, leading Brussels to freeze 19 billion euros in funding for Hungary. Magyar credibly vows to restore the money by meeting the EU’s conditions, something Orban has been unwilling to do. He says he would then leverage the unlocked funds to rev up the economy and help small businesses, in the hopes of attracting the millions of Hungarians who have left the country in search of jobs abroad to return home.
In addition, Magyar has another plan that is very popular with Hungarians who are angry about graft—a pervasive issue under Orban’s rule. Indeed, Hungary has been the worst-ranked EU country on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index for three years running.
Magyar proposes establishing a National Asset Recovery and Protection Office, an anti-corruption agency charged with investigating the malfeasance of the Orban years and any new abuses in the future.
Not surprisingly, Orban has deployed his well-worn tools to counter the surging opposition. But it doesn’t seem to be working.
Key elements of Orban’s playbook include weaponizing what are meant to be apolitical parts of government, such as the judiciary, and seizing control of the media to pound home the government’s message. It’s a pattern now familiar in other democracies.
Orban started by turning the once-independent national broadcaster into a propaganda arm of his government, then exerted financial and legal pressure on other outlets until they either capitulated or sold their assets to Orban allies. With that, Hungarians were steadily exposed to a media diet of fear—of immigrants, of LGBTQ+ people and of liberalism writ large—accompanied by gilded-lily coverage of the Orban government’s accomplishments.
Orban’s media machine has not relented with the partisan propaganda, not only touting non-existent economic successes but also smearing Magyar and his allies.
This time, however, the routine is falling flat. When Orban banned this year’s LGBTQ+ Pride march, participation in the event became a symbol of defiance and rejection of his government. The parade became one of the largest anti-Orban demonstrations in years and the biggest Pride march in the country’s history.
His efforts to smear Magyar have also fallen on deaf ears. Outlets controlled by or loyal to Orban have been disgorging what Magyar calls a “tsunami of lies,” accusing him of domestic abuse, corruption, theft and all manner of misdeeds. Through it all, the polls show Tisza holding on to its lead.
Orban also launched prosecutions against Magyar and other political foes, but the European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee ruled that MEPs like Magyar cannot be prosecuted. As a result, the most Orban can do to him and other opposition members in the European Parliament is to continue trying to smear their names.
The prime minister has turned back previous challenges, most recently an opposition that united to an unprecedented degree in Hungary’s last elections in 2022. He may yet pull off another political miracle and somehow turn back Magyar’s challenge as well, or he may play dirty tricks in the election, as he has in the past. But for now, the man whose anti-democratic governing style was lionized by the likes of Donald Trump and far-right commentator Tucker Carlson looks set to face defeat.
Ironically, a victory by Orban’s Hungarian rivals could create a playbook for anti-authoritarian movements in other Western democracies where autocratic leaders have emulated him.
NOTE: This is a version of my weekly column in World Politics Review. WPR is offering a special deal to subscribers of INSIGHT by Frida Ghitis. I highly recommend WPR to anyone interested in world affairs.
We can only hope!