Despite using all the levers of power to tilt the election in his favor, MAGA favorite Victor Orbán has been kicked out as prime minister after being in power for 16 years, with his Fidesz party getting roundly defeated.
With 98.74% of the vote counted, [Péter] Magyar’s Tisza party was projected to have won 138 of the 199 seats in the country’s parliament, giving them a super-majority capable of amending the constitution and key laws, suggesting they would be able to reverse some of the changes made by Orbán and Fidesz, and potentially unlock EU funds.
Fidesz won 55 seats, while the extreme-right Mi Hazánk party won six.
…The election was being closely watched around the world as a test of the resilience of the Maga movement and the global far right, many of whom have long looked to Orbán as an inspiration and sought to follow his playbook.
Days before the election, JD Vance had travelled to Budapest, with the US vice-president saying that he had come to “help” Orbán. Donald Trump had also repeatedly endorsed Orbán, most recently on Friday when he vowed to bring US “economic might” to the country if Orbán was re-elected.
…In recent months, Orbán, 62, had also been endorsed by rightwing and far-right leaders ranging from France’s Marine Le Pen to Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu.
Just as Trump is trying to do here, Orbán tried to rig the elections.
His rightwing populist government used its time in office to steadily whittle away at the checks and balances that constrained its power: rewriting election laws to its own benefit, manoeuvring to put loyalists in control of an estimated 80% of the country’s media, and retooling the country’s judiciary.
Ahead of the election, as the government stepped up its efforts to clamp down on dissent, local resistance swelled, bursting into public view as hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Budapest in June in defiance of the government’s efforts to ban Pride.
…Analysts were swift to warn that change would probably come slowly. During Fidesz’s 16 years in power, the party stacked the Hungarian state, media and judiciary with loyalists; how they would respond to a change in government was now up in the air.
“The path ahead for Hungary is a complicated one – Fidesz’s control of the business sector, media, public administration, and the judiciary reaches far and deep,” said Dalibor Rohac, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
…Others pointed to all that Magyar and Tisza had been up against. In the lead up to the election, billboards generated with AI and paid for by the government became a mainstay across the country, depicting Magyar as a danger to the country and a stooge of the EU and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“Tisza could win against all odds: help from the United States and from Russia, a massive state disinformation machinery, and all state institutions helping Fidesz,” said Péter Krekó, the director of the Budapest-based Political Capital thinktank.
This losss has to give Trump, Vance, and the entire MAGA cult some concern because they had held Orbán up as a model for a country’s leader and are trying to do the same thing here.
Orbán’s loss after Vance spent so much time in Hungary promoting him has to to be considered strike two for Vance, following his abortive talks in Pakistan with Iran.
Vance complained that the EU is interfering with Hungarian elections, while he was visiting Hungary to interfere with its elections.
As a countercompliment the EU leaders sould start visiting the Dem conventions and rallies while visiting USA.
Bolsonaro
Orban
Two down, a lot of others to go.
JD Vance visited the Pope and then the Pope died.
He visited Iran to end the war and the war hasn’t ended.
He visited Hungary to campaign for Viktor Orbán and Orbán lost.
A German Green party member has now invited Vance to campaign in Germany. 😁
@3 Jörg
exactly what I was thinking!
Vance, couch abuser and angel of death.
Well, it should, but it probably won’t, because -- and I cannot stress this enough -- they are fucking morons, and Trump in particular is so far gone they probably have to keep reminding him to put pants on. He’ll just say it was stolen, or deny supporting Orban at all, or both at the time. Does anybody believe Trump could point to Hungary on a map? Even close?
Orbán has conceded his loss, thus proving himself unworthy of Trump’s or Bolsonaro’s support or respect.
Only LOSERS acknowledge political or physical reality in their view.
Robbo @ 4
Jörg @ 3
He is an energy vampire, like the ordinary-looking one in ‘What We Do In the Shadows’.
Or the hostiles in the second iteration of the TV series “Stargate”.
I don’t know where DJT fits in. He is too stupid to be a Ferenghi.
Related.
Vance’s Boss Posts Blasphemous Jesus AI Image
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=DiakslX9B04
I did not know Jesus had a mushroom-shaped schlong (as per Stormy Daniels).
#8
Now trump is claiming that that shows him as a doctor, and that only the fake media would think otherwise.
Now, that said, the winner was actually a member of the same party up until recently, and had been along with his then-wife for about twenty years. So how much changes is up in the air.
Based on the Lawyers, Guns, & Money post Election of the Weekend IV: Hungary (which was written before the results were in), the main breaking point was over the presidential pardon of the assistant director of a state-run orphanage who had actively covered up many abuse cases at the orphanage (and his boss’ participation in the abuse); a pardon quite possibly granted due to pressure from the Bishop who had been responsible for both men getting their positions at the orphanage.
Since the new PM was a previous party insider, he knew where a lot of the bodies were buried, and apparently made use of that knowledge in his campaign As a result he probably peeled off a lot of the more right-leaning people who actually maintained some façade of principles, as well as anybody who opposed Orbán in general. He may manage to get more of the judiciary and other installed loyalists on board than somebody from completely outside, as he can play the ‘I believed in what the party stood for before it became a nest of corruption and child abusers’ card.
@jenorafeuer #10:
Margay is making the right kind of noises though. Being a proper EU member, joining the European Public Prosecutor’s Office and cracking down on the corrupt. I want to remain hopeful; we haven’t had a lot of wins lately.
MargayMagyar, sorry!!