WASHINGTON (AP) — A major election over the weekend was held in a small European country nearly half a world away from Washington, but the defeat of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has had significant reverberations in the United States.
That’s because President Donald Trump and many American conservatives have long embraced Orbán, who has become an icon among the global right for his anti-immigrant stance. The US president’s agenda has parallels with the way the Hungarian leader used the levers of government to bend the media, judiciary and electoral system to keep his party in power for 16 years.
Trump backed Orbán’s re-election bid and sent Vice President J.D. Vance to Budapest last week — amid the Iran war — to stump for the incumbent.
Orbán’s loss was a reminder of how the war has reduced Trump’s ability to help allied politicians abroad, as well as the limited ability of leaders to use their power to sway polls in their direction in an era of global discontent with incumbents of all ideological stripes.
“Opponents can win by tilting the playing field,” said Steven Levitsky, a Harvard political science professor and author of the book “How Democracies Die.” “Democracies in many parts of the world face many challenges, but so do autocracies.”
Orbán’s defeat has immediate global implications because he was the closest European leader to Russian President Vladimir Putin and blocked EU aid to Ukraine, which is defending itself after Russia’s 2022 invasion.
His fall was celebrated Sunday by both Democrats and Republicans, some of whom criticized his own administration for such apparent support for the Hungarian leader.
“Don’t fiddle-paddle other Democrats’ elections,” Rep. Don Bacon, Republican of Nebraska, said on social media site X.
“The freedom-loving people of Hungary have cast a decisive vote in favor of democracy and the rule of law,” posted Sen. Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi.
Matt Schlapp, president of the American Conservative Union, is part of the wing of the American right that embraces Orbán. The Conservative Political Action Conference, organized by Schlap’s group, held its first European session in Budapest and has made Hungary a regular destination.
Orban was a featured speaker at the group’s 2022 conference in Dallas.
Schlapp said there is an easy explanation for Orbán’s loss.
“Ultimately, democracy only wants change,” he said. “In a democracy, you don’t have kings, and the people speak in the end.”
“People in Hungary said, ‘We’re having a hard time with inflation, the economy and the war. Let’s try the new guy,'” Schlapp said, adding that he supported Trump’s Iran war but the turmoil it created hurt Orbán, particularly in European energy markets.
Diana Sosoka, a far-right member of the European Parliament from Romania, called Vance’s visit to Hungary on Sunday “a big mistake” because of widespread revulsion on the continent over the Iran war.
“You invite the representative of the United States of America, who created great chaos in this world?” Sosoaca said in an interview posted by the Kremlin-controlled network RT, formerly known as Russia Today. This was the biggest mistake he could have made before the election.
How Orbán consolidated power
An anti-communist activist in his youth, Orbán was initially elected prime minister in 1998 but swung to the right after being voted out in 2002. After returning to office in 2010, Orbán and his Fidesz party implemented a legal framework to strengthen rights that he and his allies had developed while out of power.
Orbán embraced what he called “liberal democracy,” blocking Hungary’s southern border with migrants from Africa and Asia who were moving north through Europe. He and his party have stifled LGBTQ+ rights, cracked down on freedom of the press and curtailed judicial independence.
Orbán cemented his power when his Fidesz party won enough seats in parliament to rewrite the country’s constitution during the 2010 global recession. They restructured the judiciary to make appointments to the bench through party loyalists, redrawn legislative districts to make it more difficult for Fidesz members to lose elections, and helped push Hungarian media companies to sell to tycoons aligned with Orbán.
The European Union has declared Hungary an “electoral autocracy”.
Orbán’s supporters scoffed at suggestions that the Hungarian leader was an enemy of democracy, and he quickly conceded defeat on Sunday. Democrats worry that Trump will try to use his own executive power to sway his party in November’s midterm elections or the 2028 presidential vote, just as Trump tried to use his official powers to win Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential run.
“Most importantly for American voters, even a man who rigs the system can be defeated when the people come together and turn against him,” said Ian Bassin of Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan group that fights authoritarianism.
Democracy has weight
California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna took the opportunity to jab at Vance: “Your ally Orbán concedes. In 2028, will you follow @JDVance if he loses?” He posted on X.
Levitsky said defenders of democracy shouldn’t take too much comfort from Orbán’s loss, noting that in some ways Trump is more repressive. He cited Trump’s use of the Justice Department to investigate the shooting deaths of protesters by political opponents and immigration officials — steps Orbán’s government never took, Levitsky said.
But Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, said he sees similarities between Trump’s and Orban’s political projects and the potential fate of their parties in the election.
“He was essentially doing what Donald Trump is trying to do in the United States,” Van Hollen said of Orbán. “My reading of the election is that the people of Hungary rejected it, just as the people of the United States are rejecting it here at home.”
Trump made no public comments on Sunday about the Hungarian election results.
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Riccardi reported from Denver.
