Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán concedes defeat in a European electoral earthquake

Hun­gar­i­an vot­ers on Sun­day oust­ed long-serv­ing Prime Min­is­ter Vik­tor Or­bán af­ter 16 years in pow­er, re­ject­ing the au­thor­i­tar­i­an poli­cies and glob­al far-right move­ment that he em­bod­ied in favour of a pro-Eu­ro­pean chal­lenger in a bomb­shell elec­tion re­sult with glob­al reper­cus­sions.

Elec­tion vic­tor Péter Mag­yar, a for­mer Or­bán loy­al­ist who cam­paigned against cor­rup­tion and on every­day is­sues like health care and pub­lic trans­port, has pledged to re­build Hun­gary’s re­la­tion­ships with the Eu­ro­pean Union and NA­TO — ties that frayed un­der Or­bán. Eu­ro­pean lead­ers quick­ly con­grat­u­lat­ed Mag­yar.

It’s not yet clear whether Mag­yar’s Tisza par­ty will have the two-thirds ma­jor­i­ty in par­lia­ment, which would give it the num­bers need­ed for ma­jor changes in leg­is­la­tion. With 77% of the vote count­ed, it had more than 53% sup­port to 38% for Or­bán’s gov­ern­ing Fidesz par­ty.

It’s a stun­ning blow for Or­bán, a close al­ly of both U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump and Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin. Or­bán con­ced­ed de­feat af­ter what he called a ″painful″ elec­tion re­sult.

“I con­grat­u­lat­ed the vic­to­ri­ous par­ty,″ Or­ban told fol­low­ers. “We are go­ing to serve the Hun­gar­i­an na­tion and our home­land from op­po­si­tion,″ he said.

‘’Thank you, Hun­gary!’' Mag­yar post­ed on X, as thou­sands of his sup­port­ers thronged the banks of the Danube in Bu­dapest, chant­i­ng “We got it! We did it!”

Or­bán, the EU’s longest-serv­ing leader and one of its biggest an­tag­o­nists, who has trav­elled a long road from his ear­ly days as a lib­er­al, an­ti-So­vi­et fire­brand to the Rus­sia-friend­ly na­tion­al­ist ad­mired to­day by the glob­al far-right.

Vot­ers showed up in droves

Turnout by 6:30 p.m. was over 77%, ac­cord­ing to the Na­tion­al Elec­tion Of­fice, a record num­ber in any elec­tion in Hun­gary’s post-Com­mu­nist his­to­ry.

The par­ties of both Or­bán and Mag­yar said they had re­ceived re­ports of elec­toral vi­o­la­tions, sug­gest­ing some re­sults could be dis­put­ed by both sides.

“I’m ask­ing our sup­port­ers and all Hun­gar­i­ans: Let’s stay peace­ful, cheer­ful, and if the re­sults con­firm our ex­pec­ta­tions, let’s throw a big, Hun­gar­i­an car­ni­val,” Mag­yar said.

Mark Rad­nai, Tisza’s vice pres­i­dent, al­so called for rec­on­cil­i­a­tion af­ter a tense cam­paign. “We can’t be each oth­er’s en­e­mies. Reach out, hug your neigh­bours, your rel­a­tives. It’s the day of re­uni­fi­ca­tion.”

‘Choice be­tween East or West’

The EU will be wait­ing to see what Mag­yar does about Ukraine. Or­bán re­peat­ed­ly frus­trat­ed EU ef­forts to sup­port Ukraine in its war against Rus­sia’s full-scale in­va­sion, while cul­ti­vat­ing close ties to Putin and re­fus­ing to end Hun­gary’s de­pen­dence on Russ­ian en­er­gy im­ports.

Re­cent rev­e­la­tions have shown a top mem­ber of Or­ban’s gov­ern­ment fre­quent­ly shared the con­tents of EU dis­cus­sions with Moscow, rais­ing ac­cu­sa­tions that Hun­gary was act­ing on Rus­sia’s be­half with­in the bloc.

Or­bán oc­cu­pied an out­sized role in far-right pop­ulist pol­i­tics world­wide.

Mem­bers of Trump’s “Make Amer­i­ca Great Again” move­ment are among those who see Or­bán’s gov­ern­ment and his Fidesz po­lit­i­cal par­ty as shin­ing ex­am­ples of con­ser­v­a­tive, an­ti-glob­al­ist pol­i­tics in ac­tion, while he is re­viled by ad­vo­cates of lib­er­al democ­ra­cy and the rule of law.

Cast­ing his bal­lot in Bu­dapest, Mar­cell Mehringer, 21, said he was vot­ing “pri­mar­i­ly so that Hun­gary will fi­nal­ly be a so-called Eu­ro­pean coun­try, and so that young peo­ple, and re­al­ly every­one, will do their fun­da­men­tal civic du­ty to unite this na­tion a bit and to break down these bound­aries borne of ha­tred.”

Strained re­la­tion­ship with the EU

Dur­ing his 16 years as prime min­is­ter, Or­bán launched harsh crack­downs on mi­nor­i­ty rights and me­dia free­doms, sub­vert­ed many of Hun­gary’s in­sti­tu­tions and been ac­cused of si­phon­ing large sums of mon­ey in­to the cof­fers of his al­lied busi­ness elite, an al­le­ga­tion he de­nies.

He al­so heav­i­ly strained Hun­gary’s re­la­tion­ship with the EU. Al­though Hun­gary is one of the small­er EU coun­tries, with a pop­u­la­tion of 9.5 mil­lion, Or­bán has re­peat­ed­ly used his ve­to to block de­ci­sions that re­quire una­nim­i­ty.

Most re­cent­ly, he blocked a 90-bil­lion-eu­ro ($104 bil­lion) EU loan to Ukraine, prompt­ing his part­ners to ac­cuse him of hi­jack­ing the crit­i­cal aid.

His chal­lenger came from the in­side

Mag­yar, 45, rapid­ly rose to be­come Or­bán’s most se­ri­ous chal­lenger.

A for­mer in­sid­er with­in Or­bán’s Fidesz, Mag­yar broke with the par­ty in 2024 and quick­ly formed Tisza. Since then, he has toured Hun­gary re­lent­less­ly, hold­ing ral­lies in set­tle­ments big and small in a cam­paign blitz that re­cent­ly had him vis­it­ing up to six towns dai­ly.

In an in­ter­view with The As­so­ci­at­ed Press ear­li­er this month, Mag­yar said the elec­tion will be a “ref­er­en­dum” on whether Hun­gary con­tin­ues on its drift to­ward Rus­sia un­der Or­bán or can re­take its place among the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­ci­eties of Eu­rope.

Tisza is a mem­ber of the Eu­ro­pean Peo­ple’s Par­ty, the main­stream, cen­ter-right po­lit­i­cal fam­i­ly with lead­ers gov­ern­ing 12 of the EU’s 27 na­tions.

Up­hill elec­tion bat­tle

Mag­yar faced a tough fight. Or­bán’s con­trol of Hun­gary’s pub­lic me­dia, which he has trans­formed in­to a mouth­piece for his par­ty, and vast swaths of the pri­vate me­dia mar­ket give him an ad­van­tage in spread­ing his mes­sage.

The uni­lat­er­al trans­for­ma­tion of Hun­gary’s elec­toral sys­tem and ger­ry­man­der­ing of its 106 vot­ing dis­tricts by Fidesz al­so will re­quire Tisza to gain an es­ti­mat­ed 5% more votes than Or­bán’s par­ty to achieve a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, hun­dreds of thou­sands of eth­nic Hun­gar­i­ans in neigh­bour­ing coun­tries had the right to vote in Hun­gar­i­an elec­tions and tra­di­tion­al­ly have vot­ed over­whelm­ing­ly for Or­bán’s par­ty.

Russ­ian se­cret ser­vices have plot­ted to in­ter­fere and tip the elec­tion in Or­bán’s fa­vor, ac­cord­ing to nu­mer­ous me­dia re­ports in­clud­ing by The Wash­ing­ton Post. The prime min­is­ter, how­ev­er, has ac­cused neigh­bour­ing Ukraine, as well as Hun­gary’s al­lies in the EU, of seek­ing to in­ter­fere in the vote to in­stall a “pro-Ukraine” gov­ern­ment.

Such ac­cu­sa­tions are part of why many in the EU see Or­bán as a dan­ger to the bloc’s fu­ture.

But across the At­lantic, Trump and his MA­GA move­ment are all-in for an­oth­er Or­bán term. Trump re­peat­ed­ly en­dorsed the Hun­gar­i­an leader and U.S. Vice Pres­i­dent JD Vance made a two-day vis­it to Hun­gary last week meant to help push Or­bán over the fin­ish line. —BU­DAPEST, Hun­gary (AP)

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Sto­ry by JUSTIN SPIKE and SAM Mc­NEIL | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

As­so­ci­at­ed Press jour­nal­ists Béla Szan­del­szky, Marko Drob­n­jakovic, Ivan L. Nagy and Flo­rent Ba­jra­mi in Bu­dapest, Hun­gary, con­tributed to this re­port.