Viktor Orbán conceded defeat in Hungary’s parliamentary polls held on Sunday, which witnessed a historic turnout of nearly 80%, the highest in its post-communist history of 36 years. After 16 years in power, his Fidesz Party secured only 55 of the 199 seats up for grabs.Orbán’s rival, and former Fidesz insider, Péter Magyar, is set to become the Prime Minister in an election he had described to the Associated Press earlier this month as a “referendum on Hungary’s place in the world”. Under Orbán, Hungary increasingly aligned itself with Russia and distanced itself from the European Union.Magyar now faces the unsavoury challenge of remaking the “illiberal democracy” Orbán leaves behind. His Tisza Party secured a comfortable two-thirds majority (138 of 199 seats based on a preliminary count), which will allow it to amend the constitution and undo several Orbán-era policies.Despite this decisive victory, Magyar’s politics do not present a clean break from Orbán’s. The 45-year-old is a nationalist first who may be more inclusive of different social groups, and will be a “severe Prime Minister”, according to an analysis in The New Yorker by Kapil Komireddi. The article also noted an authoritarian streak in Magyar, evidenced by the reluctance of his party members to go on record, and his identity is virtually inseparable from that of the party.What worked for Magyar was his pitch to the voters. Hungary under Orbán is widely recognised as having descended into a kleptocracy cloaked in Christian-nationalist rhetoric. In contrast, the reformist Tisza party has promised sweeping domestic reforms: reviving the stagnant economy, tackling widespread corruption, improving social services, auditing every contract approved by Orbán, and rooting out Russian influence in the government. Magyar has also promised to raise defence spending to match NATO’s proposed 5% GDP target by 2035, review defence industry contracts and invest in Hungary’s army. However, he has promised to be tougher on migration than his predecessor, vowing to end the country’s guest worker programme.Hungary election 2026 | What Viktor Orbán’s defeat means for TrumpMagyar broke with Fidesz in 2024, after over a decade of service with the party across the Foreign Ministry and the Prime Minister’s Office. After the Hungarian president pardoned a man convicted of covering up child sexual abuse at a state-run orphanage, Magyar publicly resigned from all government-related positions and released a conversation secretly recorded with his then-wife, Orbán’s justice minister, implicating senior government figures in the corruption case. He then joined the then-fledgling Tisza Party, campaigning extensively in rural Hungary and covering ground that mainstream parties had long ignored. This resulted in a strong showing in the June 2024 European elections, with Tisza polling 30%, second to Fidesz.The challenges aheadToday, Hungary is the EU’s most corrupt member, according to the anti-corruption watchdog, Transparency National. It is also its poorest member regarding household welfare, according to 2025 Eurostat data. While the country has a relatively higher GDP per capita, a combination of low wages and high inflation mean a lower overall standard of living.Story continues below this adOrbán’s illiberal democracy model saw him centralise control of the country’s legislative, judicial and media architecture. After returning to power in 2010, his government promulgated a new Constitution after just nine days of debate, designed to ensure Fidesz enjoyed a structural advantage. The party went on to win four consecutive elections.Orbán lowered the retirement age for judges to stack the courts – as well as government agencies – with party loyalists, many of whom amassed significant amounts of personal wealth in the process. An investigation by the Financial Times last month found the extent of this crony capitalism: companies controlled by 13 of Orbán’s closest allies received €28bn in government contracts between 2010 and 2025.The European Commission has withheld an estimated €18 billion ($21 billion) in funding from Hungary since 2022 over concerns about its democratic backsliding — equivalent to roughly 10% of the country’s GDP. Magyar has promised to cooperate with Brussels to unlock these funds and has already called for the resignations of what he termed “all the puppets who have been in power for the past 16 years”, including the heads of the judiciary, the media authority, and the competition regulator.Beyond its borders, Magyar stands to inherit a complex geopolitical equation. For years, Orbán had acted as Russia’s most reliable ally within the EU, repeatedly vetoing European efforts to support Ukraine, and blocking a €90 billion EU loan to Kyiv as recently as February. However, the Prime Minister-elect cannot yet swear off cooperating with Moscow, given Hungary’s dependence on Russian oil and gas. Ahead of the vote on Sunday, Magyar told the Nepszava newspaper that he would negotiate with Vladimir Putin if necessary, “but we will not be friends”.Story continues below this adTisza has also vowed to oppose Ukraine’s accelerated accession to the EU. President Donald Trump greets Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary outside the White House in Washington, on Friday, Nov. 7, 2025. (The New York Times)More significantly, the result is bound to reverberate in Washington, where just days earlier, US Vice President JD Vance had travelled to Budapest to express support for Orbán. Orbán has long been close to Donald Trump, having backed his presidential ambitions as far back as 2015. Their relationship, marked by bilateral visits and shared political instincts, has deepened into an alliance that directly shaped the conservative populism now governing the US. Project 2025, the conservative policy blueprint that has come to inform several of the current Trump administration’s policies, and the broader MAGA movement, drew directly from Orbán-era governance. Magyar’s victory is the clearest rebuke of this association.