Polls open in Hungary in key election that could unseat populist PM Orban
Hungarians were casting ballots Sunday in what is widely seen as Europe’s most consequential election this year, a vote that could unseat populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, an ally of US President Donald Trump, after 16 years in power.
It’s a key moment for Orban, the European Union’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.
Polls opened at 6 am local time and were scheduled to close at 7 pm Orban and his top challenger, Peter Magyar, arrived at separate polling stations in Budapest at nearly the same time to cast their votes.
Speaking to reporters outside, Orban, 62, said the campaign had been “a great national moment on our side” and thanked activists and supporters for their work.
“I’m here to win,” he said.
The election was being closely watched in countries around Europe and beyond, which is a testament to the outsize role Orban occupies in far-right populist politics worldwide.
Members of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement are among those who see Orban’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.
After casting his vote, Magyar told reporters that the election was “a choice between East or West, propaganda or honest public discourse, corruption or clean public life.”
“I urge all Hungarian citizens to exercise their right to vote,” he said.
Casting her ballot in Budapest early Sunday, retiree Eszter/Szatmari, 62, said she felt the election was “basically our last chance to see anything vaguely resembling... democracy in Hungary.”
“We all have to make a real effort to show the world that we are not who people thought we were in the past five to 10 years,” she said.
After the first hour of voting, 3.46 per cent of registered voters had cast a ballot, according to the National Election Office.
The figure was a record in Hungary’s post-Socialist history and nearly twice the turnout from the same period in the 2022 elections.
During his 16 years as prime minister, Orban has 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 has also heavily strained Hungary’s relationship with the EU, seeming to revel in using his veto power to stymie the 27-member bloc’s important decisions. Most recently, he blocked a 90-billion-euro (USD 104 billion) EU loan to Ukraine, prompting his partners to accuse him of hijacking the critical aid.
Yet after winning four consecutive elections with a two-thirds majority for his party in Parliament, signs have emerged that Orban’s absolute control over Hungary’s politics may be reaching its end.
A serious challenger on the rise
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Magyar has rapidly risen to become Orban’s most serious challenger. The 45-year-old leader of the centre-right Tisza party, which is leading in independent polls, campaigned on issues affecting ordinary voters, including Hungary’s faltering public health care and transportation sectors and what he describes as rampant Government corruption.
A former insider within Orban’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 Orban, or can retake its place among the democratic societies of Europe.
Tisza won 30 per cent of the vote in European Parliament elections in 2024, and Magyar took a seat as an EU lawmaker. Tisza is a member of the European People’s Party, the mainstream, centre-right political family with 12 national leaders in the EU.
Facing an uphill election battle
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Magyar and Tisza face a tough fight. Orban’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 will also require Tisza to gain an estimated 5 per cent more votes than Orban’s party to achieve a simple majority.
Additionally, hundreds of thousands of ethnic Hungarians in neighbouring countries have the right to vote in Hungarian elections and traditionally have voted overwhelmingly for Orban’s party.
There have also been comments ahead of the election that external meddling and internal fraud could taint the result. Fidesz and Tisza both have launched platforms for reporting irregularities, accusing their opponents of planning to commit election abuses.
Russian secret services have plotted to interfere and tip the election in Orban’sfavour, 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 who see Orban as a danger to the bloc’s future hope he loses and a new Hungarian Government under Magyar will prove a better partner.
But across the Atlantic, Trump and his MAGA movement are all-in for another Orban term. Trump has repeatedly endorsed the Hungarian leader, and US Vice President JD Vance made a two-day visit to Hungary last week, meant to help push Orban over the finish line.
