Charles Lane explores the lessons from a recent eastern European election.
After 16 years in power, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has suffered a decisive election defeat, one so overwhelming and undeniable that the self-styled tribune of “illiberal” politics conceded to his opponents—the Tisza party led by 45-year-old Péter Magyar—with no effort to resist or overturn the results.
Orbán’s defeat is also a setback for the two foreign leaders who had backed him: President Trump had made support for right-wing populists in Europe a key element of his national security strategy and dispatched Vice President Vance to campaign for Orbán days before the election. Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, had depended on Orbán to defend his interests within the European Union, most notably by vetoing a pending 90 billion euro aid package for Ukraine. Now Putin’s lost his lawyer in Brussels.
It is a watershed moment that opens new possibilities for a more united European front against both Trump and Putin—as well as a fresh start for Hungarians themselves after 16 years of increasingly corrupt and overbearing Orbán rule.
Opponents of right-wing populism on both sides of the Atlantic are celebrating the downfall of Orbán, as well they should. Yet they need to learn the right lessons from Magyar’s victory. And the crucial one is that this defeat for illiberalism is not a victory for liberalism—at least not of the progressive variety now increasingly ascendant within, say, Europe’s Green parties or the Democratic Party in the United States.
Magyar was a moderate conservative defector from Orbán’s own Fidesz party, which he loyally served—including in a senior official position—until just two years ago. At that point, he quit in protest of one of the government’s myriad scandals. As a candidate, corruption was his signature issue, along with bread-and-butter concerns like the stagnant economy and Hungary’s decrepit health and education systems.
