Péter Magyar has delivered a crushing defeat to Viktor Orbán, Vladimir Putin, and the resurgent national conservative movement. The deposition of Orbán after 16 years in office will reverberate from Budapest to Brussels. It marks the end of a regime held up by would-be autocrats as the model of illiberal democracy.
The first big winners, and those who delivered the damning verdict on Orbán’s experiment, are the Hungarian people. The implications for Ukraine, the European Union, and the wider populist right are significant but we must first remember the regime's impact on the Hungarian people. Over 16 years, civil liberties have been eroded, press freedom attacked, and Hungarians paid the price for Orbán's cosying up to Moscow.
As chants of "Europe" swelled the night sky above the Danube, the celebrations outside the Hungarian parliament were a reminder that a country's people are not defined by the illiberal whims of its leader. Their new Prime Minister, the aptly named Péter Magyar, must now deliver on his election promises. Speaking to the assembled crowd, he reaffirmed his commitment to the EU, to NATO, and to Hungarian democracy.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was quick to congratulate the new premier, vindicated by the dismissal of the biggest thorn in Brussels’ side. For years, Orbán has delayed and blocked vital EU aid to Ukraine, most recently vetoing last month's €90bn loan. Kyiv will now hope to receive that money swiftly. The thawing of tensions between Brussels and Budapest will also hopefully unlock €17bn in EU funds withheld due to concerns over the former regime's alleged corruption. With the frozen funds equal to around ten percent of Hungarian GDP, successful negotiations will provide a shot in the arm for the new administration.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin emerged as the biggest loser of the evening. Buoyed by recent oil price surges due to the US’ war in Iran, Moscow will likely be ruing the removal of its closest ally from the nerve centre of NATO and Europe. With Russia's wartime economy overheating, amid a record 35,000 military casualties in March, the release of the Ukrainian war chest from Brussels could not come at a worse time for Putin.
The loss will be an embarrassment to Washington too. A torrid week for vice-president JD Vance began with a negotiating failure in Islamabad and ended with confirmation that his visit to Hungary had been similarly unsuccessful. The bizarre interviews in which the US VP lambasted the EU for foreign interference, while himself interfering in a foreign election, led to ridicule.. Significant too is how ineffective Trump's last-minute offer of "full economic might" proved to be for Hungarian voters tired of being an experiment in a corrosive and divisive politics.
That both Moscow and Washington were such avid supporters of the same candidate speaks volumes for how the global order has been redefined. Make no mistake: this was not just a defeat for an autocratic ruler, but a knockback for a whole ideology. Since taking office in 2010, Orbán has been held up by national conservative populists across the West as a near-messianic figure. His playbook of media suppression, civil liberty erosion, and democratic backsliding has been an inspirational force for Trumpism’s architects. Kevin Roberts, head of the Heritage Foundation - which authored Project 2025, the ghoulish blueprint for Trump's catastrophic second term - went so far as to label Hungary under Orbán as "not just a model for conservative statecraft, but the model".
Ultimately, Magyar's victory is first and foremost for the people of Hungary. But it is also a triumph not just for the EU and Zelenskyy, but for a politics that rejects descent towards illiberalism. The celebrations across Budapest will continue, but it is now up to Magyar to deliver change. A vital battle may have been won - but the ongoing war is far from over.