A-Infos (en) Italy, UCADI, #207 - Hungary: The Right Defeats the Right (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

In the general election, 80% of Hungarian voters chose to replace the 
right-wing sovereignist government led by Victor Orban, a white 
supremacist, a staunch Zionist, and a close associate of Netanyahu, whom 
he praises, with a right-wing government led by Peter Magyar, his former 
associate. ---- Brussels, a major electoral sponsor of the right-wing 
Tisza party, an electoral coalition formed in 2020, born out of a 
controversial "family split" initiated by the husband of Justice 
Minister Judit Varga, from whom she later divorced, is rejoicing, 
believing it has gained a head of government who will be a major force 
in its foreign policy. However, it claims its satisfaction stems from 
the new prime minister's intentions to restore the rule of law that 
Orban had dismantled, using his ex-wife as Justice Minister for two 
terms, establishing what Orban himself proudly called a democratura, or 
illiberal democracy.
In truth, Magyar has carefully avoided making such a commitment, even 
though the electorate has given his party 138 seats, which the new 
government could use to radically revise the Constitution and repeal all 
the changes that have transformed the country, eliminating social and 
political rights, workers' rights, the freedom and autonomy of social 
groups, religious freedom, the independence of the judiciary, and 
freedom of education. On a social level, these changes have targeted and 
repressed minorities such as the LGBTQ+ community. Taking Tisza's 
program as a point of reference, it seems clear instead that the new 
government's primary and priority objective will be to restructure the 
power centers distributing European Union funding for economic 
development, dismantling the network of Orban cronies who monopolized 
these funds and enriched themselves by distributing them to friends, 
cronies, and clients. The intent appears to be to leverage the fight 
against corruption, that is, the crony-family system that imprisoned the 
country's productive forces and prevented the Hungarian oligarchy from 
dividing up the spoils of the nation.
In fact, Orban lost the election due to the country's severe economic 
crisis, which pushed inflation to 25% and significantly reduced the 
well-being of Hungarian citizens, deprived of any prospects. This was 
also due to the fact that Orban's repeated vetoes in international 
politics, especially regarding the financing of the war in Ukraine, had 
led the European Union to freeze as much as 17 billion euros. At that 
point, it was Prime Minister Orban's entourage that no longer enjoyed 
the profits to which they were accustomed and on which they had built 
their fortune. The corruption system entered into crisis because there 
was no longer any room for corruption. Hence the rebellion of Mayar, one 
of his own.
It was therefore necessary to reshape the governing political class, so 
that funding could start flowing again, managed by a new coterie of more 
or less recycled power supporters. In other words, everything had to 
change so that nothing would change. Moreover, after 16 years of 
uninterrupted Fidesz rule, the state bureaucratic apparatus what would 
be called the deep state is so accustomed to the practical division and 
appropriation of public funds and procurement that it is difficult to 
imagine the effectiveness of an effective fight against corruption.
It must also be said that Orban did his part to lose the election, so 
much so that immediately before the elections, he amended the electoral 
law, thus affecting the assignment of majorities in the constituencies, 
unaware that this could backfire, and conducted a dull and tired 
election campaign, proving that it is not always true that power 
corrupts those who don't have it. Choosing Russia as a potential 
partner, if it was wise within the international political framework, 
with the goal of achieving energy autonomy, did not take into account 
the Ukrainians' power to block, as happened with the Druzhva gas and oil 
pipelines, thus jeopardizing the country's supplies. To be fair, Orban 
did everything he could to make this issue the centerpiece of his 
policy, but it wasn't enough, nor did Trump (Orban's so-called friend) 
help him in any way. When Zelensky began blocking the Druzhva oil 
pipeline, he could have made a phone call to the Ukrainian despot and 
ordered him to reopen it. This would have been a gesture that would have 
helped Orban in the elections, a practical aid that would have suggested 
to voters that Orban's policies were somehow paying off. But nothing 
came of it, because in the end, Trump is so self-centered that he only 
helps himself (if he ever manages to).
On the other hand, Orban's blatantly pro-Israel stance, underscored by 
his speech in support of Netanyahu, had no bearing, much less his 
support for the aggression against Iran in a country with controlled 
information and completely focused on domestic problems. Proof of this 
is the complete failure of the left-wing parties, which barely reached 
2% of the vote and whose election campaigns also heavily emphasized 
criticism of the government's international stance.

The new government and the unresolved issues

It will take about a month for the new parliament to be installed and 
the new government to be formed, but the problems that remain for 
Hungary are many and all well-known, and they will inevitably influence 
the political choices the new government will be called upon to make.
Even if the country is forced to repay the debt owed to Brussels by 
changing its position on the war in Ukraine and removing the vetoes it 
has raised so far (which, after all, Orban was always ready to drop in 
exchange for concessions), the release of the frozen EUR17 billion could 
provide some relief to the country's asphyxiated economy and will help 
repay the new, hungry cliques that will share power. However, it will 
not resolve the country's structural economic problems, which have their 
roots in the general structure of the European Union's economic and 
social policy. It will not resolve the energy crisis, whose necessary 
reference point is always Russian supplies. It will not resolve the 
problems related to the Hungarian diaspora. It will create a major 
international uncertainty regarding the country's place within the 
Union, with the definitive crisis of the Visagrad group. It will not 
resolve the problem of restoring violated civil liberties, which is the 
last, but truly the last, concern of the new government.
It will then have to address the issue of how to proceed or terminate 
established relations with China, which primarily concern strategic 
infrastructure and the electric vehicle (EV) industry, including battery 
factories (Eve Energy, BYD). These already-established relations have 
positioned the country as a key logistics and production hub for Beijing 
in Europe, also thanks to the ongoing construction of the 
Budapest-Belgrade high-speed railway, built by Chinese workers and with 
Chinese capital, which should connect the two countries to the 
Beijing-controlled ports of Piraeus. To understand the importance of the 
issue, it is enough to remember that this was one of the causes of the 
Serbian crisis, which led the United States and Europe to undertake 
joint destabilization actions against the Serbian government in order to 
prevent the project's completion.
The only result of what happened will be the speeding up of 
decision-making processes in Brussels, which will inevitably be pushed 
towards the abyss due to support for the war in Ukraine, which will 
increasingly erode the levels of welfare that European Union countries 
are able to provide to their citizens and lead to the impoverishment of 
the weakest classes and social classes. It is the awareness of this 
mechanism that has led Russian politicians to rejoice at what has 
happened, arguing that the effects of the change of power are 
accelerating the crisis of the European Union, which they, like the 
United States, detest. A side effect of the Hungarian elections is the 
failure of Vance, a propagandist for Orban, in which he implicated Trump 
with a live phone call. The failure and the damage to Orban's image 
demonstrate that Trump and his vice president have now become an 
effective weapon in the hands of their adversaries.

A Sovereignist-Opportunist Program

Seeking to underscore the difference from Orban's previous tenure, which 
restricted journalists to a select group, Mayar, on Monday, April 13, 
held a three-hour conference on his government's political program. He 
declared that he would oppose any fast-track approach to Ukraine's 
accession to the European Union, arguing that accession "would be 
impossible for a country at war. All candidate states must follow the 
same process." Moreover, during a public consultation organized to gauge 
the mood of his voters (April 13, 2025, a year ago), over 90% of Tisza's 
supporters supported Magyar's proposals on the fight against corruption 
and a more European and Western position for Hungary, but only 58.2% 
said they favored Ukraine's accession to the EU. In response, Magyar 
promised that once in government it would hold a referendum on the 
issue, but only when and if accession is concretely on the table and the 
conditions are defined in detail. This is because Magyar knows well, 
like all Hungarians, that as a result of the Treaty of Trianon, which in 
1920 redrew Hungary's borders after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian 
Empire, depriving the country of approximately two-thirds of its 
territory and leaving millions of Hungarians outside the country, a 
significant portion of the population remained beyond the border, 
including the Transcarpathian community, now in Ukraine, which is 
persecuted by the Kiev government, which forcibly recruits men to fight, 
bans the teaching of Hungarian in schools, and does everything to 
assimilate the population, arresting anyone caught speaking Hungarian in 
public. In recent years, Orbán has done everything to support the Magyar 
minorities abroad, and Magyar wants to follow suit. However, in a spirit 
of compromise with Brussels, the new government will not oppose the 
EUR90 billion loan to Kiev that Orbán was blocking, but will maintain 
its decision not to participate financially in the loan, as well as 
opposing Ukraine's rapid accession to the Union.
Regarding Russia, however, he said he wants to maintain "pragmatic" 
relations with Moscow, especially regarding gas imports, noting that 
Budapest cannot "change the geography. Russia will be there and Hungary 
will be here," so his country will not be able to easily cut itself off 
from Russian supplies, as it wants to continue "buying cheap oil 
safely," even as it will work to diversify its sources, whatever that 
means in a country that, as is well known, is landlocked. For the same 
reason, sanctions should be lifted because "it is not in Europe's 
interest to buy raw materials at higher prices because this destroys our 
competitiveness.
I understand the moral issues, but we must not shoot ourselves in the 
foot." Not an alliance, then, but not a split either.
On immigration, Magyar, in line with Orbán, supports the country's total 
closure. In other words, a right-wing government, but not too 
right-wing, pragmatic and opportunistic. The European left has nothing 
to celebrate!

G. C.

https://www.ucadi.org/2026/04/19/ungheria-la-destra-sconfigge-la-destra/
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