Peter Magyar speaks to the media in Budapest on Monday.Denes Erdos/The Associated Press
The shellacking that Hungarian voters laid on Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Sunday, running him out of office after 16 years, is a welcome moment. It is a reminder that right-wing populist governments can overreach and lose support overnight. Mr. Orban’s departure also means Russia has lost a key ally in Europe at a critical moment in the war in Ukraine.
But there is another message in the victory by opposition leader Péter Magyar, and that is that Mr. Orban’s brand of populism is best countered by a more centrist option, one that deals head-on with the issues that inspired populism, rather than by any corollary on the far left.
Mr. Magyar, who used to be an Orban supporter and was once married to Mr. Orban’s minister of justice, was the ultimate insider until he broke with the government in 2024. He focused in the campaign on economic issues because he knew they would resonate with voters, and he was immune from attacks about his conservative bona fides, because he himself was a conservative, including on immigration.
In short, he was acceptable to Orban voters who were looking for a change because they were not being asked to switch their allegiances to their polar political opposite.
Orban’s far-right party swept out of power after 16-year reign in Hungary
Mr. Orban’s many years in power and his corruption of Hungary’s political system made him the standard bearer for the authoritarian-tinged, anti-immigrant populism that has been rising across Europe and in the United States over the past decade. So admired was he by the Trump administration that U.S. Vice-President J.D. Vance spent three days in Hungary last week urging voters to keep Mr. Orban in power. He called him a “key defender of Western civilization” and staged a phone call with Donald Trump during which the U.S. President said Mr. Orban “didn’t let people storm your country and invade your country like other people have.”
Mr. Orban’s ouster is thus a warning about the limits of what he proudly called an “illiberal state” – defined by the government’s takeover of media and the courts, and by gerrymandered electoral districts and equally tortuous electoral laws that favour one party over the rest.
In Mr. Orban’s case, illiberal democracy also featured lapdog support for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his illegal invasion of Ukraine, and a Kremlin-scripted hostility toward the European Union, of which Hungary is a member.
Mr. Magyar promised to restore relations with Brussels, end Hungary’s support of Russian priorities (albeit while maintaining its dependence on Russian oil and gas), provide Ukraine with funding for its defence, and purge the judiciary and civil service of the partisans Mr. Orban put in place.
Who is Peter Magyar, the man who ended Viktor Orban’s 16-year rule in Hungary?
But those were afterthoughts in a campaign that focused almost entirely on Mr. Orban’s performance: his naked corruption, the poor state of Hungary’s social services and the rising cost of living. That ought to be the takeaway for the Democrats as they think about the midterm elections in November.
Mr. Trump’s electoral success benefited from the same wedge issues Mr. Orban exploited as Hungary’s leader: immigration, nationalism, anti-wokeism and us-versus-them social conservatism.
His future, or at least that of his MAGA movement, could depend on his ability to implement Mr. Orban’s illiberal-state regime, such as stacked courts, control of media outlets, a compliant bureaucracy, gerrymandering and favourable election laws. So far, America’s remaining checks and balances have limited his success in that regard.
But as Mr. Orban’s defeat shows, that will only get you so far anyway, because durable power, even for autocrats, depends on something else: voters’ economic well-being.
Mr. Trump, thanks to his incompetently prosecuted war in Iran, has caused oil and gasoline prices to jump dramatically higher in the United States. His arbitrary tariff wars have raised costs for farmers, manufacturers and consumers. He has cut social programs for the poorest Americans, while building a ballroom for the White House.
The Democrats can’t simply copy Mr. Magyar, obviously, but they can learn from his example. They need to find a simple message that attracts skeptical Trump voters while keeping their traditional support on board – a message that focuses on the Republicans’ performance, and not on the wedge issues that they used to win power.
The answer might be familiar to Democrats. How do you say in Hungarian, It’s the economy, stupid?