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Hungary’s Viktor Orbán was defeated by his own system. Magyar has to clean up the mess

Even out of power, Viktor Orbán has built a system to protect his legacy and make it difficult for any successor to govern.

New Delhi: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s defeat in elections last Sunday marks the end of the “illiberal” leader’s infallibility, leaving his successor Péter Magyar to pick up the pieces of the Central European nation’s withered democratic institutions. 

Orbán’s 16-year rule fundamentally transformed Hungary, from its post-Soviet views of democracy, to a centralised state with almost all control in the hands of the outgoing Prime Minister. This is not Orbán’s first electoral defeat. 

As Prime Minister of Hungary, he lost power in 2002, only to come back stronger in 2010 and build an electoral dynasty that left Budapest’s institutions weaker. That is why his reign and defeat are ThePrint’s Newsmaker of the Week. 

Even when Orban couldn’t get more than 50 per cent of total votes in most elections, he still maintained a supermajority in the Hungarian Parliament. This shows how he maintained a solid grip on power.

However, his ability to win an outsized number of seats in comparison to votes cast has come back to hurt him, with Magyar winning around 53 per cent of the vote, but earning a supermajority in the incoming Hungarian Parliament. 

The very rules Orbán designed to protect his power have now been used against him, leaving his party, Fidesz, licking its wounds for the next four years. Even out of power, Orbán has built a system to protect his legacy and make it difficult for any successor to govern. 

His efforts to remake Hungary in his image have brought much of the media landscape under the control of his loyalists. Orbán also chipped away at judicial independence, while extending tenures of multiple government agencies such as the State Audit Office and the Prosecutor General’s Office to nine and even 12 years, ensuring his appointees remain in power long after his defeat. 

If Orbán domestically remade Hungary in his vision, his foreign policy was built around being the enfant terrible within the European Union (EU), while cultivating ties with........

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