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Geoff Russ: Orbán gave Conservatives a blueprint for capturing institutions

And Péter Magyar gives them an outline for beating the Liberals

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Viktor Orbán’s fall from power in Hungary last weekend proves that even the most entrenched, politically captured states are not immortal.

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Since 2010, Orbán’s Fidesz party machine has flexed an iron-grip on power. He did not head a fascist dictatorship or communist tyranny, but a regime that deliberately utilized the levers of the state to influence the media, NGOs, and other institutions.

Geoff Russ: Orbán gave Conservatives a blueprint for capturing institutions Back to video

Even that could not stop the triumph of Orbán’s former ally Péter Magyar, whose Tisza party romped to victory. Tisza took 138 of 199 seats, and more than 53 per cent of the vote, giving it the two-thirds majority required to alter the Hungarian constitution. One of Magyar’s most difficult tasks will be unwinding nearly 17 years of Orbánism, lest its legacy harass and cripple his new reformist government.

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