Orban goes, Magyar comes Hungary embarks on a change of system
Today marks the end of the 16-year era of right-wing populist Viktor Orban in Hungary. Now the innovator Peter Magyar has to deliver.
09.05.2026, 04:05
09.05.2026, 06:55
SDA
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- Peter Magyar takes over as Hungarian Prime Minister following the Tisza party's election victory. The two-thirds majority in parliament heralds a fundamental change in political power.
- The new government wants to strengthen the rule of law, which was weakened under Viktor Orban, and appoint new central institutions. At the same time, alleged cases of corruption from the Orban era are to be investigated.
- Magyar is seeking rapprochement with the EU in order to release billions in frozen aid and finance social election promises.
According to the agenda, the parliament elected in April will elect the leader of the bourgeois Tisza party to the highest government office in the afternoon hours. Magyar will then take the oath of office and assume the reins of government. Nothing less than a change of system is on the horizon in the east-central European EU country.
In the parliamentary elections on April 12, Tisza secured 141 out of 199 seats - and thus has a constitution-changing two-thirds majority. Orban's Fidesz party now only has 52 MPs. Only one other formation managed to break the five percent barrier: the far-right party Our Homeland (Mi Hazank) won six seats.
After the election, Magyar emphasized: "The voters have given us an enormous mandate, which comes with an enormous responsibility for us." A "human and functioning Hungary" was the central promise in his election campaign, which he led with tireless personal commitment.
Champion of "illiberal democracy"
In the years since 2010, Orban had created a hybrid system of rule with autocratic elements. With a new constitution, laws and partisan appointments to institutions such as the Constitutional Court, he has dismantled the rule of law in Hungary and undermined democracy. As a result, the European Union (EU) froze many billions of euros in funding.
Orban's pro-Russian and anti-Ukraine stance made the country an outsider in the European Union (EU). With his vetoes, the pugnacious Hungarian sometimes brought the European alliance to the brink of being unable to act. The "illiberal democracy" proclaimed by Orban inspired right-wing populists worldwide - from the German AfD to the MAGA movement around US President Donald Trump.
System change, but under the rule of law
"We have set ourselves the goal of changing the system", Magyar said at his press conference the day after the election. "But we will not rebuild the rule of law with measures contrary to the rule of law," he added. The Tisza party's two-thirds majority at least allows it to amend the constitution and approve laws with constitutional status. At the same time, the criminal prosecution of alleged corruption under Orban can become a lengthy procedure in compliance with the rule of law.
Magyar has called on those responsible in key institutions installed by Orban to resign of their own accord. He has set a deadline of May 31 for this. Among "Orban's puppets", as he calls them, are President Tamas Sulyok and the presidents of the Constitutional Court, Peter Polt, and the Supreme Court, Andras Varga, as well as the Chief Public Prosecutor, Gabor Balint Nagy. Magyar could ultimately remove them from office more or less brutally with the parliamentary two-thirds majority of the Tisza party.
"Bringing home" the frozen EU funds
In his election campaign, Magyar promised tax cuts for low earners, but also the retention of Orban's social benefits, including lifelong income tax exemption for mothers with more than two children or the gradual introduction of the 14th monthly pension. In order to be able to finance this, he must release the approximately 18 billion euros in frozen EU funding as quickly as possible.
Around 10 billion of this must even be released by August if it is not to expire. Magyar and his future Foreign Minister Anita Orban therefore entered into intensive negotiations with the Brussels Commission even before the change of government.
"The political will to solve the problem is there on both sides," says analyst Robert Laszlo from the Budapest-based think tank Political Capital. A fundamentally different tone will prevail in the relationship between Budapest and the Brussels institutions. Under Orban, this was recently hostile.
Orban's dwindling influence
The defeat of the long-term prime minister is painful for him because his Fidesz party was unable to prevent the challenger from gaining a two-thirds majority. Without a blocking minority, Orban cannot sabotage Magyar's government actions. Guided by this insight, he announced a few days after the election that he was giving up his parliamentary seat, which he had won as his party's lead candidate.
Signs of erosion in his camp are rapidly becoming apparent. In a recent media interview, an oligarch close to the government tearfully claimed that he had "ceded his companies worth around 30 million euros to the state". Police and public prosecutors have already begun investigations and account freezes against individuals and companies in the network of the ceding power.
In a leaked letter to party activists, Orban wrote: "Fidesz will not be able to renew the entire Hungarian right from within the opposition." Rather, this task would now fall to "smaller and larger clubs and circles" that "believe in the national idea". Some observers assume that Orban, who will turn 63 at the end of May, has reached the end of his political career. They consider the prospect of him or a possible successor leading the until recently overpowering system party out of right-wing debating clubs to new heights to be utopian.
