Andrew Tettenborn

Viktor Orbán’s victory has dashed hopes in Brussels

Hungary's decisive election result is a blow to the EU

(Getty images)

The scale of Viktor Orbán’s victory in the Hungarian election overnight has taken even his supporters by surprise. Against many predictions, Orbán has actually improved his position: he has retained for his Fidesz party the two-thirds parliamentary majority necessary to override certain constitutional challenges to change a number of constitutional rules. Progressive opinion, in and out of Brussels, is not difficult to gauge. This is an unfair victory in a gerrymandered electoral system by someone who used an inflated media influence to trounce his opponent Péter Márki-Zay, who called for close EU co-operation and an increase in anti-Putin zeal. It shows Hungary as unconcerned with the rule of law. As a result it isolates Hungary, alienating it not only from the EU but from the other Visegrad states (Poland, Czechia and Slovakia), who want tougher moves against Putin; only last week, it is worth remembering, those states pulled out of a projected Visegrad meeting in Budapest over precisely that issue.

All these charges are at least partly true. Hungary is not very liberal, and is certainly not a model democracy. In addition Orbán is undoubtedly too close for comfort to some very unpleasant dictators: not only to Putin, who gives him a very good deal on energy in order to keep him onside and the lights on in Budapest, but also to Xi Jinping. (Hungary, remember, has been an enthusiastic Belt and Road partner for some seven years, with increasing signs of a numinous, and ominous, Chinese presence.) Nevertheless, if Brussels has any sense it will see this result not so much as a reason to wag fingers at Budapest as a warning to itself.

First, it seems fairly clear that it was a genuine popular victory, even discounting the built-in advantages for Orbán. The opposition was admittedly united; but since it comprised a curious combination of socialists, greens and fairly far-right parties such as Jobbik (once reputedly even more extreme than Fidesz), its only serious offering was that it wasn’t Fidesz.

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