Hungary’s Landmark Election: Can Péter Magyar Restore Hungary's Democracy?

Abstract: This essay asks whether Viktor Orbán's electoral defeat can actually restore Hungarian democracy. Péter Magyar—a politician almost unknown three years earlier—won 71 percent of parliamentary seats, a supermajority that on paper lets his Tisza government do whatever it wants. The reality, the author cautions, will be more difficult to confront. After four election cycles of autocratic capture, institutions have been compromised, courts and media reshaped, and democratic habits abandoned; entrenched veto players remain, and the new government inherits a hollowed-out state with empty coffers. Hungary thus joins the ranks of countries attempting a "democratic U-turn," a path that research shows is steep, and Magyar confronts deeper damage than counterparts in Brazil, Poland, or the United States faced. Yet it is never a winning strategy to count Hungarians out.