Sometimes, the good guys finish first. That’s what happened this past weekend in Hungary, where voters turned out in record numbers to deliver a two-thirds majority to the center-right opposition party, Tisza. Péter Magyar, its leader, will become prime minister, bringing an end to the 16-year rule of right-wing populist and would-be dictator Viktor Orbán.
The implications of this democratic breakthrough will reverberate throughout Ukraine, Europe and maybe even globally. In the 21st-century struggle between autocrats and democrats, these election results in Hungary rank among the most significant outcomes in the past 20 years.
In the 21st-century struggle between autocrats and democrats, these election results in Hungary rank among the most significant outcomes in the past 20 years.
Orbán, who was prime minister from 1998 to 2002 before returning to power in 2010, did not try to undermine Hungary’s democratic institutions overnight. Instead, his process was incremental as he chipped away at the independence of the courts, civil society and the media; constrained academia; and nurtured ties with what The Atlantic called “a group of oligarchic companies that in turn controlled a good chunk of the economy.”
This democratic backsliding gradually eroded the conditions necessary for conducting free and fair elections. Corruption served as Orbán’s primary tool for undermining democratic institutions. He was so successful that analysts and emulators referred to his tactics as “Orbán’s playbook.” Those tactics seemed to take inspiration from the playbook of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who a decade earlier had weakened constraints on Kremlin power. Some even assessed that Orbán had matched Putin’s success in destroying democracy and erecting a new dictatorship in the heart of Europe.
That assessment was wrong. Dictators do not lose elections. Orbán’s defeat underscores that he failed to consolidate a full-blown dictatorship in Hungary, unlike what Putin has done in Russia. Moreover, because Orbán’s loss was so decisive, he had no viable options to try to falsify the election results. Unlike Putin in 2011, Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko in 2020 or U.S. President Donald Trump in 2021, Orbán recognized the electoral results quickly and conceded.
Magyar’s party is center-right, and he was once a member of Orbán’s party, Fidesz, so this electoral outcome is not a wholesale rejection of conservative policies per se. But the policies that the new government decides to pursue are of secondary importance. What matters most is that the precedent for changing government through elections has been reaffirmed in Hungary. That is the essence of democracy. Hungary is clearly a democracy today.
One area where policy change is likely to be most pronounced is within the European Union. For years, Orbán has blocked consensus within the EU, often supporting policies that were more beneficial to Putin than to other Europeans. To a lesser extent, that was also true within NATO. These dynamics are poised to change. Europe is set to become more unified at a time when unity is desperately needed to deal with Putin and with Trump. On some EU votes, Orbán had a partner in Slovakian leader Robert Fico. But few expect Fico to stand up to the entire EU leadership alone.
The biggest beneficiary of a more unified EU will be Ukraine. For years, Orbán tried to slow EU aid to Ukraine and to impede new EU sanctions on Russia. Those dramas are over. This year, Orbán has been blocking delivery of a 90 billion euro ($106 billion) loan to Ukraine. With Magyar in charge, this loan can be transferred to Kyiv, which desperately needs financial assistance. Magyar has also pledged to reduce Hungarian imports of Russian energy, albeit gradually. That’s a win for Ukraine too.
More broadly, Orbán’s defeat could signal the peak of power for illiberal populist nationalists in Europe and perhaps also the United States. For more than two decades, populists with authoritarian proclivities have been gaining larger shares of votes in Western democracies. Those who came to power include not just Orbán in Hungary but also Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, Aleksandar Vučić in Serbia, Andrej Babiš in the Czech Republic, Fico in Slovakia and, most dramatically of all, Trump in the United States.
More broadly, Orbán’s defeat could signal the peak of power for illiberal populist nationalists in Europe and perhaps also the United States.
These leaders and their movements shared a transnational ideology of illiberal populism that Putin also embraces. And they have been helping one another. Consider, for instance, Vice President JD Vance’s scathing speech berating European liberal democrats at the Munich Security Conference in February 2025. That day, he met with the leader of Germany’s far-right AfD party. Last week, Vance returned to Europe, this time to campaign for Orbán. (Clearly, his presence did not help.)
Time will tell whether Hungary’s election results mark a turning point for illiberal nationalism, including its MAGA variant in the United States. It’s already clear, however, that the results are a significant data point. In the past two decades, victories for democracy have been few and far between. Let’s celebrate this one and hope that it’s the beginning of a global trend.
Michael McFaul
Michael McFaul is a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University and most recently the author of "Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder." He writes a newsletter on international politics at https://michaelmcfaul.substack.com. He served as special assistant to the president at the National Security Council and as U.S. ambassador to Russia in the Obama administration.