Hungarians have rejected Viktor Orban’s 16-year dictatorship, and instead elected his former political ally Peter Magyar to succeed him. Magyar’s Tisza Party has a secured two-thirds of the parliament, and thus a supermajority.
The new government will be able to reverse some of Orban’s illiberal policies. Magyar said he would work to create a “free and European” Hungary. This will reverse the rejection by his predecessor of Brussels.
Magyar made a promise to reform the state media and restore freedom of press, both under Orban’s rule.
The huge victory for Tisza came after a campaign that many foreign observers claimed was marred by unprecedented disinformation, government propaganda and foreign interference. The result is surprising to many who believed that election results could be easily manipulated by the ruling party in autocracies like Hungary where news access and political debate are controlled by “spin-dictators”.
Orban’s informational autocracy is textbook. His ruling Fidesz Party’s propaganda campaign in the current election was just as powerful as before. The country was blanketed with pro-government billboards, funded not only by Fidesz, but also by the central bank of Hungary, the Magyar Nemzeti Bank, and the powerful state-owned MVM energy company.
The state communication channels have been repurposed to send partisan messages.
Media and trolls in favor of the government amplify existential threats against their opposition.
Fidesz has a strategy that goes beyond simple messaging. Theatrical tricks were used to intimidate or influence the voters. According to reports, a bomb that was supposed to have targeted Hungarian electoral infrastructure in Serbia has been defused. On false grounds, Ukrainian gold and cash assets were confiscated on the pretext of a shadowy threat posed by Ukraine’s war mafia.
The spectacles were designed to give weight to Fidesz’s claims of external interference.
Fidesz tried to ignite its base of supporters by framing this election as an existence-threatening struggle for Hungary. Fidesz, which was elected for the first time in 2010, has almost solely relied on this strategy. It portrays its opponent as a threat to Hungary and turns elections into an issue of life or death.
Fidesz learned the hard way that sticking to the same playbook for 16 years was not enough. The Hungarian economy has changed dramatically since 2022. It is now essentially stagnant, and the inflation rate in Europe is the highest. Second, the political landscape has changed dramatically.
The opposition is now united behind one credible candidate to challenge Orban. Fidesz was able to easily overcome the ineffective and fragmented coalitions that it faced before.
Peter Magyar’s Tisza party (Respect and Freedom), which he founded, has become a credible alternative. EPA/Zoltan Bálogh
Orban’s appeal fails
Orban has a large arsenal of tools for manipulating information, but his campaign appears to be widely rejected. It appears that Orban’s strategy failed, which was unexpected for a political veteran with such experience. Orban’s annual address to the nation in February promised the same thing, protecting Hungary against change and external threats, such as those from Brussels.
This is a message for true believers and not the undecided or wavering. No attempt was made to reach out to other groups, or to expand his coalition.
After watching Fidesz for all these years, the system of voter manipulation that it has built up over the past few decades is not well suited to this goal. It is difficult to convince new voters of your position.
Credibility, strong arguments, and a clear message are all necessary. The government does not have any. It is much easier to concentrate on the fear created by misinformation, slander and moral panic buttons.
It was clear that this didn’t work.
A survey conducted in February found that just 23% of Hungarians agreed with the central government claim, that a victory for Magyar or his Tisza Party would lead to Hungary getting dragged into an overseas war. Orban pressed this theme in his speech on the state of the nation.
Nearly half of Fidesz supporters – or 43% – said that they did not believe the central claim.
The political science literature makes it clear that negative campaigns are dangerous.
The effectiveness of attack messages depends on how credible they are to voters. Untrue attacks may backfire, and undermine trust in both the attacker and the target. This is what happened to Hungary during the election campaign.
This all points out a larger lesson regarding information control under illiberal governments: It can be easily overstated. Hungary’s election in 2026 has shown that information autocracies can be limited.
Orban’s election campaign failed because it reached its limits in face of an economy that was faltering and a credible and united opposition.
