Dr. Miklos K. Radvanyi
The old proverb, familiar across Europe, that a fish rots from the head down expresses a principle that applies with particular force to tyrannical governments. Rarely has this observation found a more appropriate political application than in Viktor Orban’s Hungary. He was not merely presiding over Hungary’s system of corruption; he was the indispensable political authority at its summit. His criminal responsibility for the extremely corrupt character of his tyrannical state cannot be separated from the boundless authority exercised exclusively by Viktor Orban alone.
In pre-2026 Hungary, this principle raises the unavoidable question about Viktor Orban’s sixteen years as prime minister. How could a rotten-to-its-core Gangsterocracy, marked by allegations of unimaginable corruption, monopolistic business relationships poisoned by shameless nepotism, and politically determined economic decisions operate for so long under a criminal leader who had concentrated absolute power in his own hands? Thus far, the scandals of the Orban era have been examined individually. One investigation concerns a public contract. Another follows the remarkable accumulation of private wealth. Still another concerns the treatment of European subsidies or the conduct of a government official. Yet treating each controversy as an isolated event risks overlooking the political arrangements connecting them. Hungary’s horrible experience under the protracted Orban Gangsterocracy demand an examination not only of the recipients of public money, but also of the governing authority that established the criminal conditions under which those privileged recipients prospered.
From 2010, when Viktor Orban returned to the office of prime minister, to 2026, when he was unceremoniously booted out of office, the parliamentary supermajority of the FIDESZ Party enabled Orban to undertake sweeping constitutional as well as institutional changes. In 2011, Viktor Orban revised Hungary’s constitutional order, expanded executive influence, and altered the relationships among institutions that were intended to exercise independent authority. The consequences reached beyond ordinary party politics. Constitutional democracy depends upon the distribution of power. Parliament must be capable of questioning the executive. Courts must be able to apply the law independently. Prosecutors must pursue evidence without political interference. Journalists must be free to investigate those holding public office. Political appointments, personal loyalty, and economic influence became increasingly intertwined. The distinction between public authority and private commercial advantage became a recurring subject of concern. The concentration of tyrannical authority in Orban’s hands provides the starting point for examining his extended criminal responsibility.
The extraordinary growth of fortunes associated with shady characters close to the tyrant became one of the most visible characteristics of the Orban years. Lorinc Meszaros offers a particularly striking example. Once a simple gas fitter in Felcsut, Orban’s home village, Meszaros became by far Hungary’s wealthiest businessman. A butt of cruel jokes within Hungary, this primitive, uncultured, and uneducated dimwit could not even put together a simple sentence in Hungarian without at least committing several grammatical errors. Together with Orban’s son-in-law Istvan Tiborcz, they were the recipients of countless government contracts without the customary tendering processes. The Corruption Research Center Budapest has supplied important empirical evidence relevant to these shenanigans. More specifically, its research found that companies linked to politically connected individuals enjoyed systematically greater chances of winning public procurement contracts after 2010, compared with other businesses.
The significance lies in the pattern. An isolated irregularity might result from poor administration, individual favoritism, or an unlawful decision by a particular official. A recurring pattern involving politically connected enterprises raises broader questions about how the political and economic systems interacted. Viktor Orban’s Hungary presented the political economy of loyalty. In its essence, it was based on institutionalized relationships, in which political power generated economic privilege, and economic privilege helped expand political power. The system rewarded unconditional loyalty, encouraged dependence, and discouraged independence. This was not necessarily a conspiracy directed through written orders. Indeed, personalized tyrannies frequently function without explicit instructions. Subordinates learn what the tyrant wants. Officials anticipate political preferences. Businessmen understand which relationships matter. Decisions are made accordingly. The result was a tyrannical regime, in which responsibility becomes deliberately difficult to trace, even as authority remains unmistakably concentrated. Such arrangements provide the tyrants with the advantage of centralized control and the convenient defense of decentralized responsibility.
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of Viktor Orban’s Gangsterocracy concerns the use of European Funds. Money intended to modernize infrastructure, strengthen regional development, improve competitiveness, and benefit ordinary Hungarian citizens became entangled in allegations of favoritism, procurement manipulation, and political patronage. The European Commission, the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), and other European institutions repeatedly raised concerns about Hungary’s public procurement practices, conflicts of interest, and deficiencies in anti-corruption safeguards. The European Union eventually withheld substantial funding because of the rule-of-law and financial-control concerns. These developments represented more than an administrative disagreement between Budapest and Brussels. They raised the possibility that resources provided through European solidarity helped strengthen an economic and political structure increasingly hostile to the institutional principles upon which the European Union itself rests. Hungarian taxpayers and European taxpayers alike deserve a full accounting of how these resources were distributed, who benefited, and which officials authorized the relevant decisions.
The controversies surrounding the Hungarian National Bank and its associated foundations illustrate another serious dimension of the problem. The transfer of management of enormous public resources through complex institutional arrangements generated fundamental questions about transparency, accountability, investment decisions, and the protection of public assets. The same question applies to the wider network of public-interest asset management foundations established under Viktor Orban’s rule.
Could Viktor Orban the tyrant really have known nothing?! Here lies the central contradiction in the political defense of Viktor Orban. For years, his supporters portrayed him as the indispensable architect of Hungary’s national revival: the decisive statesman who personally controlled the direction of government, the economy, foreign policy, and the country’s political destiny. Yet, when corruption controversies arise, the same political narrative implicitly asks the public to believe that significant financial decisions occurred beyond his knowledge or control. Both propositions cannot comfortably coexist. If Viktor Orban was the commanding authority behind the system, he must answer politically as well as criminally for his tyranny’s operation. This is the dilemma at the heart of his sordid legacy. Either the prime minister exercised the centralized authority his political career celebrated, or his government permitted extensive abuses beyond his effective supervision. Neither possibility absolves him of political as well as criminal responsibility.
Beyond the financial scandals lies a deeper tragedy. Viktor Orban repeatedly invoked patriotism, Christianity, national sovereignty, and the defense of Hungarian civilization as the moral foundations of his tyrannical regime. Yet, genuine patriotism requires fidelity to the public interest. Christianity cannot serve as an excuse for greed. National sovereignty does not confer upon political leaders a personal entitlement to the resources of the state. A government cannot credibly proclaim itself the defender of the nation, while permitting public institutions to become instruments of private enrichment. The greatest damage caused by systematic corruption is not measured exclusively in missing money. It is measured in the destruction of public trust. The demoralization of honest citizens, the departure of talented young people, and the conviction that advancement depends less on merit than on political connections. A society in which citizens cease to believe in equal treatment under the law gradually loses the moral foundations of constitutional government.
If Hungary is to recover from the consequences of Viktor Orban’s hugely destructive tyranny, the restoration of accountability must begin where political authority was concentrated. Investigations confined to minor officials, intermediaries, or expendable businessmen would be insufficient. They would risk preserving the very fiction that allowed Viktor Orban’s Gangsterocracy to operate: that ultimate responsibility belonged everywhere except at the summit. No former minister, politically, connected businessman, foundation executive, or senior public official should enjoy immunity from legitimate criminal scrutiny. Nor should the former prime minister. The purpose of such investigations must not be to produce a predetermined verdict against Viktor Orban. It must be to establish the truth about how Hungary was governed, how public wealth was allocated, and whether the highest officials participated in or knowingly facilitated unlawful conduct. Only a reconstructed independent prosecutorial system and judiciary can deliver credible answers.
Viktor Orban spent sixteen years persuading Hungarians that he alone possessed the political strength, intelligence, and determination necessary to lead the nation. He cannot now be separated from the system he built. Its achievements, failures, institutional distortions, and unbelievable corruption form part of his political legacy. The essential question is not whether every questionable contract was personally signed by Viktor Orban. It is whether the concentration of power he deliberately created enabled a network of political and economic privilege to flourish under his absolute authority. History will judge him for the tyranny he established. The courts, where warranted by evidence, must determine whether he bears personal criminal responsibility for any of its abuses. Hungary will not recover merely by changing the occupant of the prime minister’s office. It must dismantle the institutional arrangements that made such an extraordinary concentration of political and economic power possible.
The fish rots from the head down. And when the head of government becomes inseparable from the system whose integrity is in question, the search for accountability cannot stop anywhere below him. Actually, it should start with him. For all these reasons, he should have been arrested long ago and already should have been presented to the court as a defendant with due alacrity.