How Trump’s help delivered the kiss of demise to Orban’s election possibilities after landslide defeat

It took Viktor Orbán sixteen years to reshape Hungary in his image. It took one evening to undo it.

Peter Magyar’s landslide victory followed months of campaigning, positioning himself as the antidote to years of autocratic drift, while Hungary’s veteran nationalist leader doubled down on his ties to Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.

In the days leading up to the election, Trump had offered the prime minister his “Complete and Total Endorsement”, telling Hungarians to “GET OUT AND VOTE FOR VIKTOR ORBÁN”. He went so far as to send his vice president, JD Vance, to campaign for Orbán in Budapest – as the polls showed Magyar pressing ahead.

Trump was silent on Monday after the election defeat, still dealing with the fallout of failed negotiations to end the war in Iran. As the conflict continues to harm his domestic and global popularity, experts have questioned whether his endorsement is a blessing or a curse.

As Magyar was outlining his vision for reintegration with Europe on the campaign trail late last year, Orbán met with Trump at the White House to shore up ties. The president gave the prime minister a glowing endorsement for his hardline stance on immigration, and Trump showed sympathy for Hungary’s reliance on Russian energy.

Orbán left with an exemption from US sanctions on Russia – and no protests against his cosying up to Moscow.

Trump ramped up support as the election closed in and Orbán signalled his alignment with the slogan ‘Make Europe Great Again’.

JD Vance stood before Orbán’s supporters in Budapest last week and praised him as a defender of “Western civilisation”, vowing to “help him in this campaign cycle”. But this was not enough to convince the 20 per cent of undecided voters he was worth re-electing.

In fact, betting markets showed that support for Orbán’s dipped slightly after Vance’s address to fans in the Hungarian capital, according to analysis by Newsweek. But experts cautioned that this does not necessarily mean that Vance’s speech caused the change.

Diana Sosoaca, a far-right member of the European Parliament from Romania, on Sunday called Vance’s Hungarian visit “a big mistake” given widespread revulsion at the Iran war on the continent.

In a similar vein, Germany’s far-right AfD party is said to be pulling itself away from public appearances with the Trump administration with the unpopular conflict in the Middle East dragging on, according to a report.

The party’s co-leader Alice Weidel told lawmakers last month to reduce high profile trips to the US to cosy up to Maga Republicans, according to people present at the meeting.

Orbán had led Hungary through four years of recession and recovery when he chose to unveil his grand plan for an “illiberal democracy” at a cultural event in Romania in 2014. In his most consequential speech as leader, he argued that the financial crisis of 2008 had exposed holes in the liberal project and that a strong state, no longer bound to obsess over personal freedoms, was Hungary’s future.

“Just because something is not liberal, it still can be a democracy,” he said, prophetically. The EU called it “electoral autocracy”.

In the 12 years that followed, he consolidated power around himself, justifying his alternative system as a necessity to preserve the country’s Christian heritage and ward off dangerous outsiders. His Fidesz party would crack down on migration, stifle LGBT rights and attack the freedom of the press. It also 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 Orbán.

Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, told AP: “He was essentially doing what Donald Trump is trying to do here in the United States. My 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.”

Éva Fodor, a professor at the Central European University, told The Independent ahead of the election: ““Before every election, they had a different kind of enemy: immigrants, George Soros, Brussels, and the gender lobby. But now they don’t seem to have a new enemy that they can construct. So they’re just trying to sort of double down on some of these topics.”

Orbán’s landslide defeat handed Magyar a comfortable majority in Hungary’s 199-seat legislature, opening the door for meaningful reforms.

Dr Jonathan Eyal, associate director at the Royal United Services Institute, told the Independent ahead of the election that the two-thirds majority was needed to overcome “landmines” placed by Fidesz to trip him up after assuming power.

Warning against expecting too much from Magyar at first, he said the main task now will be to topple the existing structure in the face of fierce resistance. The government has spent years developing quasi-government bodies “deliberately created to interfere with the functioning of a new government”, he explained.

Tisza will likely face “guerilla warfare” in the form of disobedience campaigns in the countryside and blockages in parliament. Orbán will have already committed spending to communities, constraining the next leader or forcing him to abandon Fidesz’s promises.

“Orban has waged two campaigns,” he explained. “One was a very direct frontal assault to stop him getting elected. The second one was to plant landmines everywhere to ensure that if he does get elected, he cannot succeed.”

To ensure he succeeds, Europe will have to release some money before Magyar can start enacting policies to show quick achievements before Orbán can unsettle him, Dr Eyal said.

Landlocked Hungary is largely dependent on Russian oil and gas, making it a valuable access point for the Kremlin to try to influence support for Ukraine in Europe.

Frustrations with Hungary blocking aid have ballooned into accusations of outright collaboration with Russia, after leaked conversations appeared to show Orbán and his foreign minister Peter Szijjarto pandering to Moscow and undermining efforts to help Ukraine.

One conversation apparently heard Orbán laying on his “friendship” to Putin. He reportedly said: “In any matter where I can be of assistance, I am at your service.”

Dr Eyal said Magyar is likely to remain “suspicious” of Ukraine, citing pre-war disagreements. But he will aim to be “unobstructive” in Europe, crucially allowing a €90bn loan for Ukraine to pass.

Ahead of the election, Magyar advocated for “pragmatism” in the conflict, which he says “means that we have no say in Russia’s internal affairs, and they don’t have any say in our affairs. We are both sovereign countries, and we respect each other, but we don’t have to like each other”.

He will now have to be careful to balance the EU’s demands with the public’s views on Ukraine. Nationwide, just 34 per cent of voters want a new approach to Ukraine, while 32 per cent want a continuation of Fidesz’s reluctance to get involved. Tisza overwhelmingly supports change while Fidesz’s base supports the status quo.

Source: independent.co.uk