Young Hungarians on election night, April 12, across the Danube River from the Parliament in Budapest, anticipating Tisza’s victory. Photo by Péter Ungár, used with permission
The May 9 transition of power to new Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar and his Tisza Party after their landslide April 12 election victory has many who believe in the rule of law thrilled with the potential development of a model for a democratic transformation—one that could serve as a model here, and across the world. US leftists and progressives might be skeptical of the former member of the right-wing Fidesz Party (see Richard’s article on the election campaign in the April Public i) who sent Trump buddy Viktor Orbán packing after 16 uninterrupted years in power. But there is much hope to be gained in examining his initial steps toward dismantling an entrenched “illiberal” autocratic system.
Despite Fidesz’s heavy use of the full toolkit of underhanded measures afforded to it by entrenched authoritarian rule—threats and scare tactics, Russian-facilitated AI manipulation, media restriction, electoral tampering, targeted economic enticements, and the like—Tisza won 141 of the 199 seats in Hungary’s parliamentary system, more than enough for a two-thirds supermajority that allows it to push through constitutional changes to undo the damage done to the rule of law, civil society, human rights, all of the country’s basic institutions, and international relations. Turnout was a record 80 percent, with a massive mobilization of younger voters, some two-thirds of whom voted for Tisza. Tisza got over 55 percent of the vote overall, to less than 40 percent for Fidesz.
Foreign Policy
Orbán’s “special relationship” with Vladimir Putin had turned Hungary into the Russian spear leading its attack on European Union solidarity with Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression; Hungary’s vetoes have blocked the large EU loan package for Ukraine, stepped-up EU sanctions on Russia, and preparations for Ukraine’s eventual membership in the Bloc. While Magyar can hardly be described as pro-Ukraine, neither is he pro-Russia; and he recognizes the large public distaste for Orbán’s stance that made Hungary a pariah in Europe. The blockages against aid to Ukraine, so crucial now that the US administration has backed away, have started to fall, and that process is sure to continue as the new government negotiates its return to a cooperative EU relationship. Similarly, support for LGBTQ rights is not part of Tisza’s platform; but the announcement that Hungarian police will permit this year’s Pride march in June, which Fidesz tried not only to ban but to criminalize last year, exactly coincided with the announcement that the EU would release $19 billion in solidarity funds previously withheld because of the previous regime’s democratic backsliding. A reconciliation with not only EU rules and funding but with European values was a major, and very popular, part of Magyar’s campaign.
Magyar is also no great critic of Israel, with which Hungary has extensive practical relations, due to the many Hungarians who emigrated there after World War II and more recently, and Israelis who established businesses in Hungary after the fall of the wall in 1989. But only two days after his swearing-in, Hungary lifted its standing veto on EU sanctions against violent West Bank settlers, allowing them to pass; and two weeks later the new Hungarian parliament voted to reverse the previous government’s withdrawal from the International Criminal Court (ICC). Orbán had announced the renunciation in April, 2025, during a visit by his other bestie (despite the much-condemned antisemitism in Orbán’s and his party’s rhetoric and propaganda) Benjamin Netanyahu. Although Magyar, shortly after his investiture, invited the Israeli prime minister to return—in line with invitations to leaders of other countries with which Hungary has particular connections—he has since made it clear that Netanyahu would be subject to ICC arrest warrants in Hungary should he take up the offer. He said he would judge all further Israel-related measures by “Hungary’s interests”—rather than in terms of a personal alliance of authoritarians, which is the lens through which his all-important younger constituency now tends to see the relationship.
Media
The role of the media, and especially social media, was crucial to Tisza’s rise. During its rule Fidesz consolidated its power over TV stations, radio channels, print newspapers, and radio frequencies. The state’s authority was put in the service of the party, denying bandwidth assignments to independent radio stations, and withholding state advertisements or public service announcements from media outlets unfavorable to its rule—in effect, bleeding them out, then coyly claiming that they failed to thrive in the market. But the fact that, according to experts, about 80 percent of all available media sources (especially TV and radio) were Fidesz-friendly came about through a more elaborate process. Oligarchs who got rich from winning overpriced bids on public investments, often funded by the EU, funneled their financial support back to media outlets friendly to the government, either by advertising, sponsorship, or outright purchase. In this media environment face-to-face contacts and social media were the only channels through which Tisza could reach citizens. While Facebook, Instagram, X, and others were crucial in distributing independent information, especially to rural areas that had been Fidesz strongholds for two decades, Magyar’s visits to even the most remote villages were even more important. Tisza’s original goal had been to “shake 15,000 hands,” and indeed he visited 700 municipalities (roughly a quarter of all settlements in the country), several of them more than once, in the last two years. Perhaps even more significant was Magyar’s inclusion in these visits of Roma (“gypsy”) neighborhoods, so-called segregated settlements, who had been threatened or bought off to vote for Fidesz’s candidates; and the mode of his approach—he didn’t deliver speeches but had conversations in which he was often the listener. To sustain the presence of this new alternative voice even after the visits, the movement established hundreds of Tisza circles—that is, small local civic groups that channeled objective news to their respective neighborhoods and, reversing the flow, forwarded local concerns to the campaign headquarters. These circles not only organized their own publics but also generated their own representatives who then ran in the election in April, and thanks to their embeddedness and credibility, overwhelmingly won.
According to Magyar and many around him who followed him from the beginning, these interactions changed him: he became humbled, but also more incensed by the poverty, abuse of power, and disenfranchisement he witnessed. If we may call this an ethnographic approach to power, a kind of “from-below” view of society, Magyar certainly exercises it well and effectively. His use of social media is unparalleled in European history. In addition to having orchestrated a dramatic festival on the day of his inauguration, in which the health minister once again performed the dance he got famous for on the evening of the party’s electoral victory, he broadcasts practically all of his meetings and state visits live, and gives tours of luxury government buildings erected by the Orbán regime at the expense of sustaining the standards of the education and health care system. It is thus no surprise that his party has increased its support to 70 percent after the elections; according to experts, Fidesz’ popularity will continue to decrease. Today even Orbán himself admits that Fidesz is a discredited brand.
It won’t help their chances that they can no longer rely on the propaganda of the state media funded by taxpayers or the media oligarchs. Many of the directors and editors of Fidesz-friendly TV and radio channels have been sacked; and the biggest beneficiary of the party’s communication spending rushed to the media, literally crying on TV, to make deals and save their skins. His company was most infamous for its campaign billboards and TV ads that mocked the opposition, claiming that they were sponsored by the EU, George Soros, or Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky; but this year it caused the greatest psychological harm by a war hysteria, threatening that if Tisza wins, Hungarian men would have to go fight on the Ukrainian front.
Rule of Law
When asked in opinion polls, most Hungarians who voted for Tisza claimed that corruption was the greatest factor in their choice. This may be surprising since Hungarians, like other eastern Europeans who have lived under state socialism, have always been more forgiving when it came to bribes, corruption, nepotism, or influence peddling—after all, they themselves had had to resort to the use of such connections when trying to procure a good or service in shortage or to oil the wheels of a cumbersome bureaucracy. Indeed, four years ago corruption was not a major concern in the elections. This year when—due to the precipitous decline in living standards; the value of the Hungarian currency; the quality of public services, especially health care; and the highest inflation on the continent—the ostentatious wealth of the party-state elite was thrown into sharp relief, corruption was no longer seen as something “we all do,” but a cause of the people’s economic grievances.
To be sure, concerns over the rule of law went well beyond the abuse of power: from expelling teachers, who wanted independent curriculum and better resources; through denying commissions and performances to artists; to outright embezzlement, as in the case of the director of Hungarian National Bank. It also included the silencing of lawsuits and police investigations into such abuses. Criminals close to Fidesz got away with everything. This is why the new Magyar government has called on the chief decision-makers in the courts, the Hungarian equivalent of the US General Accounting Office, and the president himself to resign “while they can still do so with their heads held high.” By now, just a week after the swearing in of the new cabinet, the new Parliament has already passed legislation to establish parliamentary investigative committees to uncover and publish the most notorious cases. Even more significant is the passing of a law that limits the prime minister to two terms—that is, eight years—an unheard-of restriction in Western democracies (usually only the president’s term is limited).
In general, the social media and legislative focus have been on issues we may associate with justice, or the addressing of grievances. Here the mood of the public demands that the moral and economic perpetrators are called to account and punished. The new government has embraced this vehement need for balancing the scale of justice and for compensating the victims, and its representatives have struck sharp tones in the public—even mocking, if not humiliating, the former regime’s key figures. It is not an exaggeration to say that there has never been a political situation in which the party in power emotionally resonated with laypeople to this extent. Some experts described this as a constant fueling of dopamine through videos in which the power of the people is made not only explicit but experience-able.
Domestic Policy
In some respects the new government is technocratic. First, each policy arena is now represented by a separate ministry (in US parlance, department)—which is a huge departure in itself, given that under the Fidesz regime, for example, the education and health ministries were closed and then corralled under the Ministry of Interior, in which the chief honcho was a former policeman. Second, the ministers chosen are all experts in their respective policy areas, many from academic backgrounds, and most with significant foreign job experience. At the same time, it is fair to say that at least in its intent the cabinet is politics- and value-driven. Nothing exemplifies this more than the fact that the government decisions can be vetoed by the ministers of health, of education, or of finance. It’s also not technocratic in the sense that woven into the legislative and executive process is a series of requirements for public participation, not just in realizing goals but in devising them. There is in fact a minister whose designation is “responsible for culture and social relationships.” The appointment as state secretary (just below a minister) of a social psychologist/social worker who has done more than anyone in carving out institutional help for the poor and the Roma living in segregated slums is another sign that gives many hope. Perhaps the greatest symbolic gesture of the new government was the invitation of a childrens’ music band from a small, impoverished village to play the “gypsy anthem” at the inaugural session of the Parliament.
To be sure, nominally, Tisza is a right-wing party. However, in all of its symbolic and practical acts, it has demonstrated that it defines itself more as a popular front that incorporates liberal, social-democratic, socialist, and green views. If it is true, as some political scientists argue, that the future belongs less to ideologies and traditional parties and more to specific projects that a wide swath of political constituents can support, then certainly Tisza’s victory and busy first weeks are evidence that the moral rejuvenation of a nation formerly under the boot of a Putin-friendly autocratic regime is such a worthy objective.
Zsuzsa Gille is emerita professor of sociology at UIUC. She is a native of Hungary.
Richard Esbenshade taught history at UIUC, specializing in Hungary and eastern Europe, has lived in Urbana since 2000, and visits Hungary often.