13.4.2026

Orbán lost the Hungarian election – what happens now?

The center-right opposition party TISZA won the parliamentary elections in Hungary on Sunday, April 12, 2026, marking the end of Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party’s 16-year rule.

The turnout was a record high of almost 80%. Fidesz received 38% of the vote, while the party of former Orbán supporter Péter Magyar won 54% of the vote, which means more than 2/3 of the seats in parliament due to Hungary’s mixed electoral system, which is different from Finland’s, giving TISZA a constitutional majority that allows for constitutional reforms that could lead to major political changes in Hungary, such as a more pro-EU, pro-Ukrainian and more critical stance towards Russia, and changes to the laws that Orbán used to take over Hungary’s legal system and media. Apparently, the strict gay and immigration laws will also be liberalized.

The conservative Orbán lost, above all, to the liberal youth.

In addition to TISZA and Fidesz, only the far-right party Mi Hazánk (Our Homeland) entered parliament.

According to Katalin Miklóssy, a professor of Hungarian origin living in Finland, the election result was a significant turnaround, even a huge revolution comparable to the fall of the communist regime in 1989.

It is interesting that Magyar’s government consists mainly of experts from outside politics who have lived all over the world but have now been invited back to Hungary.

Hungary is therefore facing a major change in policy and system. How well can Magyar and his party succeed?

No one knows the answer to that, but time will tell.

I personally think that TISZA’s policies will be successful at first, but gradually they will start to cause bigger and bigger problems, which will lead to a longing for the old order like a pendulum.

I have supported Orbán’s Christian conservative policies in many ways, but not in the fact that he did not lead Hungary out of the EU, because he wanted to get Hungary a lot of EU support money, which he then directed mainly to his own supporters, which I cannot consider acceptable, although all those in power all over the world, including Finland, always do that.

I also did not like the fact that Orbán undermined the separation of powers. His intentions were good, but too much concentration of power always brings problems and corruption. In a world dominated by evil, maintaining a just and righteous government is very difficult, in fact almost impossible.

The defeat was a great disappointment for Orbán, but also for Putin and Trump, who supported him, but especially for Trump, because US Vice President J. D. Vance visited Budapest just before the election to support Orbán.

The European Union is of course happy about the election result, and of course also in pro-EU Finland, where the President of the Republic Alexander Stubb and Prime Minister Petteri Orpo congratulate the opposition party TISZA and its leader Péter Magyar on the election victory in X.

– This is a very significant result not only for Hungary but also for Europe and for everyone who believes in liberal democracy, Stubb wrote in the X publication.

I agree that the result is significant, but I still suspect that the new regime will fall because the realities of life and the difficulties facing Hungary will be so severe in the future that TISZA’s support will melt away very soon.

Photo 1: Viktor Orbán.

Photo 2: Péter Magyar.

Viktor Orbán.

Péter Magyar.