János Palotás
Let us begin with an authorial premise: As long as Viktor Orbán, Antal Rogán, Péter Szijjártó, János Lázár, László Kövér, Zsolt Semjén, Bence Tuzson, and even a single member of the last Orbán government remains unprosecuted, and as long as court proceedings are ongoing against Gábor Iványi and his associates – Zita Gurmai, Anna Donáth, Bernadett Szél, Károly Herényi, and two other associates – we can only speak of a change of government at the level of the TISZA government’s state administration. And this is incompatible with the social will that authorized a regime change.
Change of government or regime change: Between March 2024 and April 2026, first the desire, and then the expectation, grew increasingly stronger in Hungarian society that we are not simply fed up with Orbán’s governance, and we do not merely desire a new government, but we want to rid ourselves once and for all of the social system with which Orbán has taken the Hungarian nation hostage. And this is not merely more, but something entirely different from a change of government.
Between 2024 and 2026, opposition parties, analysts, and intellectuals increasingly used the term “regime change” as some sort of superlative for “change of government,” failing to perceive that the difference between the two political concepts is not one of degree, but of substance. The misinterpretation of the will for regime change by opposition party leaders and political analysts already caused confusion during the campaign, especially in the assessment of the TISZA Party’s campaign actions, and this can still be detected today in almost all of the TISZA government’s measures, including the professional backgrounds of its personnel appointees.
As we approached the spring of 2026, societal desire increasingly expressed the historical, and simultaneously scientific, interpretation of regime change, while the statements and actions of political parties, analysts, and intellectuals receiving wider publicity – regardless of what they called them – almost exclusively carried, and still carry today, the substantive hallmarks of a change of government.
In my articles published in the final months of the election campaign, I pointed out with increasing criticism: it is high time for politics and the intelligentsia to refresh their knowledge regarding the content of the concepts they use. It was already palpable then that society’s demand for regime change was moving further and further away from the path chosen by the political elite, a distance that did not decrease even after the successful spring elections; in fact, it has now grown into a serious social tension, reaching its peak so far in the election of the president of the National Asset Recovery and Asset Protection Office (NVVH). Regarding the person of the Office’s president – Anna Róza Unger, elected by the Parliament – the veracity of the government’s intention for regime change, voiced by the Prime Minister, has been rightfully questioned. Whether the Prime Minister’s communicative misleading of the voters is deliberate, or simply a lack of knowledge stemming from Péter Magyar’s background, cannot yet be established as a fact today, but the number of arguments supporting deliberateness is multiplying day by day, and this must, and should, be paid increasingly closer attention to.
At the level of the citizens’ will and expectations, the historical date of the regime change is April 12, 2026.
In the April elections, the votes of the masses of citizens clearly expressed the social will by creating, through the election result, the legal possibility for a regime change according to the social will to be realized, despite the fact that it would have been difficult to misunderstand the acceptance of Orbán’s electoral system for a transfer of power, and the government-changing nature of the TISZA Party’s campaign and program. Therefore, it can be reasonably stated that at the level of citizen will, the historical date of the beginning of the regime change is April 12, 2026, but this is only true for the expression of the voters’ will; the actions of the TISZA Party, which won the election, have thus far remained indebted to this.
However, the operation of the state, parliamentary legislation, and personnel decisions are still characterized today by a mere change of government.
The government-changing nature of the two-year campaign preceding the spring elections is undoubtedly proven by the fact that the election took place within an electoral system designed for the long-term maintenance of the Orbán regime’s power structure, which was accepted without any meaningful protest by all opposition parties, as well as by the vast majority of analysts and intellectuals.
We can no longer change this in hindsight. Today, beyond drawing conclusions, we must focus on how the extraordinary mandate received from the voters, which also allows for the correction of previous grave political mistakes committed during the electoral process, created the opportunity for the new government and parliament, despite the government-changing nature of the election, to realize the legitimate expectation of the voters for a regime change, in harmony with the social will.
In my opinion – and I am reluctant to write this down – based on the past months, it can unfortunately be stated that the TISZA government and the TISZA parliament, in all their decisions, are working on a power-centric transfer of power that remains stuck at the level of a change of government. To this day, the TISZA Party cannot present any measure that could be interpreted exclusively within the conceptual framework of a regime change, and perhaps the most spectacular proof of this is the executive selection process of the NVVH, and the complete unsuitability of the person elected as the president of the Office.
I am not claiming that the government has done nothing in the past hundred or so days, as that would obviously be untrue. It has done a lot, and I agree with many of its decisions. Whether those decisions relate to “bringing home” EU funds, to railway or energy developments, to education, or to healthcare. But these are all government-changing promises and government-changing decisions.
Although I am only at the first third of my article (and so is the reader), I can already hear the criticism: what is it, if not regime change, to enact the 16th and 17th amendments to the Fundamental Law, the removal of Tamás Sulyok and soon five constitutional judges, the establishment of the National Asset Recovery and Asset Protection Office, etc.?
Therefore, I will attempt to answer the question in advance. The legal path chosen by Péter Magyar for the removal of Tamás Sulyok and the affected constitutional judges remained in itself within the framework of government-changing legislation, since their departure was not accompanied by a declaration that they were stripped of their public mandates as servants of a criminal regime, and thus no criminal proceedings were initiated against them. That is, they should not be retiring, but rather, following the final establishment of their guilt, they should all have been directed toward prison. An unmissable example is the resignation of Chief Prosecutor Gábor Bálint Nagy, appointed as the chief defender of the Orbán regime’s crimes, whose path also did not lead to prison; instead, in the Criminal Court Affairs Department of the Office of the Prosecutor General, as a subordinate prosecutor of the Prosecutor General’s Office, he will continue to represent the state, among others, in the court proceedings that will hopefully commence sooner or later due to the abuses of the Orbán regime.
In a regime-changing procedure, their departure could not be achieved through individually crafted legal solutions one by one. For this, however, the Parliament would first have to declare in a resolution, a law, and/or even by amending the Fundamental Law, that the country is compelled to take regime-changing measures and legislation, because for the past sixteen years, a criminal regime has operated that abandoned, and even plundered, society. And the justification for all subsequent legislation built upon this would need to clearly state that their purpose is to strip those involved of their public mandates and immunity due to their crimes committed against society.
I can already hear the “BUT” reaction, according to which Prime Minister Péter Magyar has uttered these words countless times in his parliamentary speeches. This is indisputable. However, the naming of the largest opposition party and its representatives as criminals by the Prime Minister, without the creation of the currently missing legislative background that would codify the criminal nature of the previous system and the necessity for regime-changing legal regulation, may raise the question of the Prime Minister’s criminal liability, including the investigation of the offense of abuse of office, since in the current legal environment, these statements are severely unlawful.
In an election campaign, if they are not used by the leader of the governing party, these words fall under the scope of freedom of expression. However, coming from the number one leader of the ruling power, in my opinion, they already raise, and may even realize, the provisions of Section 305 of the Criminal Code regarding the offense of abuse of office: as conduct inciting authorities to act, aimed at securing an unlawful political advantage for the governing party, and causing an unlawful political disadvantage to the opposition.
It is important to understand that I agree with the Prime Minister’s sentences, and as an opinion journalist, I can adopt them even verbatim. The reigning Prime Minister’s words, however, impact the reactions of the institutions under his control, and at the same time, he possesses all the legal tools to enforce the state’s interest in law enforcement, which means it is incomprehensible why he does not use them. Therefore, these statements are impermissible for him as long as the legal background to substantiate his words is missing. Without legal substantiation, there is currently no meaningful difference between Viktor Orbán’s ‘bugging’ remarks of March 15, 2025, and Péter Magyar’s parliamentary speeches.
In summary: I have tried to review all Fundamental Law amendments, laws, and other legal regulations adopted by the Parliament since April 12, 2026, but I have found no proposals or adopted legislation, not even legislative plans in the preparatory phase but made public, that would aim to change the previous social order and system as part of a coherent and regime-changing legislative effort. Each of the proposals by the TISZA leadership independently sought a response to a given problem differing from the previous regulation, and thus the legislation remained within the framework of a change of government in every case.
The lack of the TISZA government’s will for a regime change, causing disappointment for me and many others, can be detected not only in political but also in moral issues.
The targeted action against their political opponents and critics is an unavoidable and essential characteristic of autocratic, dictatorial regimes. Such abuses of power, however, are incompatible with the democratic understanding of law.
And if this is so, a democratic regime change is inconceivable without the annulment of proceedings against the political victims of the previous system, as well as the expedited termination of state proceedings still ongoing against the politically persecuted.
The situation is different in the case of a simple change of government, where the proceedings of state bodies, the police, the prosecution, the tax authority (NAV), and the intelligence services enjoy legal continuity, and it is expressly forbidden for the state to intervene in their proceedings.
What has been described in this regard proves to me that under Péter Magyar’s one-man, loyalty-based leadership, the measures the Prime Minister calls regime-changing—whether intentionally or due to flawed knowledge—actually reflect government-changing thinking.
This is particularly dangerous because in the highly centralized, leader-centric structure he has established, Péter Magyar expects the government, the TISZA leadership, its parliamentary group, and its experts alike to follow the designated political line, without meaningful internal criticism or policy autonomy. This model may seem temporarily effective during a regime change, but it is impermissible in the case of a change of government, while in both cases the lack of control carries the risk of rushing into a dead end.
A sad consequence of this is that legal restoration has not occurred even in the case of such emblematic victims of the Orbán regime, persecuted through tailor-made legislation, as Gábor Iványi and his church. The Hungarian Evangelical Fellowship (MET) has been fighting for 15 years to regain its church status, while the European Court of Human Rights had already established on April 8, 2014, in a case against Hungary that included MET’s petition (70945/11 and others), that the stripping of church status, the political nature of the re-recognition procedure, and the differential treatment violated Article 11 of the Convention, in conjunction with Article 9.
The Hungarian state, now under the TISZA government, has known for more than 11 years from the final Strasbourg judgment that the procedure violated the convention, yet the full restoration of MET’s legal status has not been carried out to this day following April 12.
A direct consequence of this abuse of power was the raid by the tax authority (NAV) on February 21, 2022, at the Dankó Street center of the Oltalom Charity Society and MET, followed by the prosecution’s indictment on November 3, 2025. The court proceedings against Gábor Iványi and his associates are still ongoing today, however, and the prosecution enforcing the state’s criminal claim continues to maintain the unlawful charges, now even under the TISZA government. For me, this is both legally and morally unacceptable, and at the same time, it is one of the most glaring proofs of the lack of regime-changing governmental conduct.
Gábor Iványi’s case is only an example, but perhaps the most illustrative one. The number of political victims and casualties of the Orbán regime is extremely high. The systemic nature of the tyranny in this regard was confirmed by the Orbán regime itself when it established the Sovereignty Protection Office via Act LXXXVIII of 2023.
The operation of the Office served the power interests of the Orbán regime and the intimidation of opposition behavior, which Péter Magyar also referred to when submitting the law on its abolition. The law adopted on June 30, 2026, also terminated ongoing proceedings, and in its justification, the National Assembly declared that the Office “does not perform a genuine public task,” its creation “served political intent and interest,” and it exerted pressure on citizens, organizations, and press products for political purposes.
The abolition of the Office is correct from the perspective of the state functioning according to different principles, but the legal or financial compensation for the citizens, organizations, and media outlets harassed by the Office, a state apology, and the holding accountable of those acting on behalf of the power have yet to take place. I have reason to assume that the latter, the impunity of the perpetrators, is the most painful for the victims and casualties of the Orbán regime, and Péter Magyar and the TISZA leadership will find it increasingly difficult to wash their hands of the responsibility for this.
I have no desire for revenge, but to this day, the District V. Police Headquarters’ senior staff member, Ádám Péter Hunyadi, promoted to police lieutenant colonel by Orbán’s people in just a few years, who pronounced the guilt expected by the regime against me and my associates due to my live broadcasts from Ákos Hadházy’s Tuesday protests. His decision was annulled by the court without a hearing, classifying it as entirely incompatible with the law in every aspect. Yet he may continue serving the prevailing power interests undisturbed, and this is certainly not right.
In the event of a regime change, I would consider it natural to withdraw from the disputes pursued by the Orbán regime before the European Commission and the Court of Justice of the European Union, as well as to fulfill the established obligations.
And alongside Gábor Iványi and his associates, I would also expect a state apology, the retroactive annulment of the proceedings against them, and their ex gratia, i.e., equity-based, compensation in the cases of Ákos Hadházy, László Varju, András Fekete-Győr, Bernadett Szél, Katalin Cseh, Bence Tordai, Anna Donáth, András Jámbor, Dávid Bedő, Anna Orosz, Márton Tompos, Ferenc Gelencsér, and many of their fellow sufferers.
In summary: We certainly cannot speak of a regime-changing will at the government level as long as the shortcomings presented in my article persist. For the future of Hungary, it is important that society does not compromise with the country’s new leadership even out of “gratitude for the replacement of the Orbán regime.” It must demand from the new political leadership—not from the power itself—that it fulfills what it requested and received authorization for. It must carry out a real regime change and not settle for a mere change of government, especially not a simple transfer of power.