Hailed by the Western far-right as a blueprint for autocratic consolidation, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s regime may be in its final days. Orbán has ruled for the past 15 years over what has come to be known as an “illiberal democracy” – an autocratic regime with nominal democratic institutions but ones rigged to the point that the rulers can’t be challenged. But now he faces a united opposition heading into elections next April.

Orbán began consolidating his power in 2010 in his second term. He purged civil servants, the military, and government institutions, replacing them with loyalists, used regulatory bodies to force media critics off the air, placed universities under government control, and gerrymandered and rigged elections to stay in power. He also dolled out government contracts to a close group of oligarchs who maintained his rule.

He also utilized culture war issues and scapegoating minorities, such as migrants, equating them with disease, and the LGBTQ community, portraying them as a threat to children. He also changed the constitution to codify his rule into law and has maintained a permanent state of emergency since the pandemic, which allows him to suspend certain constitutional freedoms, such as freedom of assembly.

This all worked while the economy remained steady and the opposition remained fragmented and ineffective. For the next decade and a half, he consistently won tilted elections by wide margins. But slowly, the reality began to change. Hungary’s economic growth slowed, its infrastructure crumbled, and shortages in government services and employees began to emerge. People no longer cared about culture war issues or the alternate realities painted by state propaganda when they saw the poverty, corruption, and decay around them, and Orban and his inner circle growing richer as they grew poorer. 

In 2022, following the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, Orban aligned closely with Russia, diplomatically isolating the country within NATO and the EU. Later that year, the EU froze 19 billion Euros in funding over rule-of-law concerns, which Orban has repeatedly tried and failed to access to rescue the economy. Orban’s Fidesz Party went underwater in polls on economic issues. 

This grievance finally found a unifying figure in 2024, when Peter Magyar, a former Fidesz MP turned Orban critic, at the head of the newly launched centrist Tisza Party, began his campaign to unseat Orban. Magyar took an unconventional approach to his campaign, founding a network of “Tisza Islands,” or local community clubs and aid groups, to organize people and address their grievances while he constantly toured the country, gaining him support even in Fidesz’s stronghold areas. 

Fearing this challenge, the Orban repression machine swung into action, trying to discredit him with AI deepfakes and attempting to get the EU to revoke his diplomatic immunity, which they refused. Despite these efforts, Tisza surged decisively ahead in the polls, becoming the first opposition party to hold such a wide lead since Orban took power. As their usual tricks weren’t working, the regime began to take a more violent stance, such as referring to political opponents as “insects” in a manner echoing WW2-era fascist leaders.

Orban also tried to use the culture war issue by banning Budapest’s Pride March in June 2025. This move backfired badly, as roughly 100,000 people showed up for the march in defiance of the ban, setting a record for the march’s attendance. In October 2025, a similar situation occurred as thousands turned out for a pride march in the city of Pecs after authorities banned it. This time, the organizer had obtained the permit for the march by claiming it was a protest against feral deer. Despite the apparent nature of the march, the police permitted it and even protected demonstrators from violent counter-protesters (the organizer was later called in for questioning, however).

The most visual expression of how the tide has turned against Orban was on October 23rd, the anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Both Orban and Magyar held competing marches in Budapest that day to commemorate the event. Orban held a “peace march” to call for the end of the war in Ukraine (on Russia’s terms), whereas Magyar held a “national march” a few hours later to call for an end to Orban’s regime. Although the regime had banned drones during the national march to prevent images of the crowd, a passenger on a passing plane captured an image of hundreds of thousands flooding the streets. Experts estimate that at least twice as many people showed up for Magyar’s march as for Orban’s.

At their respective rallies, Magyar gave a speech that compared Orban’s embrace of Putin to the Soviet puppet leaders the 1956 Revolution overthrew and outlined a vision of national unity and a prosperous future. In his address, Orban fearmongered about a potential regime change, but offered no proposals to fix the economy.

To make matters worse, Orban was snubbed of an opportunity to host peace talks between Trump and Putin when the Trump administration pulled out of the negotiations and announced significant sanctions on Russian oil and gas providers, which Hungary is almost entirely reliant on, against Orban’s wishes. This proves that despite the American right’s admiration of him, Trump has no intention to rescue his regime at the moment. 

However, this momentum does not guarantee Orban will fall. The election rules are tilted in his favor, he can still mobilize a core base of supporters, and the possibility of Russian interference can’t be discounted. Additionally, Tisza must win a commanding majority in parliament to dismantle the regime fully without significant pushback. 
But the election still presents Orban with a dilemma: he can let the election run fairly and almost certainly lose, or he can rig it so overtly that the regime loses all legitimacy and standing in the EU. It could also provoke protests that the police have shown themselves to be reluctant to crush. Either way, he now faces a dilemma that portrays his experiment as anything but successful.

Edited By: Blake Uhlig