April 13, 2026
On Sunday, it happened: Viktor Orban was defeated. In an election with the highest voter turnout in Hungarys democratic history, Peter Magyar’s Tisza Party won a two-thirds supermajority, enough to alter the constitution that Orban had rewritten to shore up his power.
Some admirers of Orban have argued that the fact that he lost proves he was never an autocrat to begin with. What it really demonstrates, however, is that opposition to Fidesz was so strong it was able to overwhelm all the structures Orban put in place to protect his rule: wildly distorted voting districts, a captured media, state-sponsored propaganda, local patronage networks, and widespread threats and intimidation.
I would agree, except that the controlled opposition is designed to:
I think that in this example, he doesn’t pass enough tests to be controlled opposition, but that does not mean that they can’t gain control of him after the fact through threats, intimidation, and bribery. There seems to have been plenty of that going around.