IT WILL TAKE HUNGARIAN TEAMWORK TO UNDO ORBAN’S DAMAGE
Dr. Miklos K. Radvanyi
The enduring national tragedy of Hungary has always been that its leaders as well as its people have confused political change with national reconstruction. After sixteen years of unimaginable national catastrophe caused by an extremely incompetent and rapacious gangster called Viktor Orban, Hungary on May 9, 2026, changed its government. Whether it can permanently change itself into a stable democracy remains an entirely different question.
The extraordinary electoral victory of Peter Magyar on April 12, 2026, brought an end to the FIDESZ Party’s sixteen-year domination of Hungarian politics. With a two-thirds parliamentary majority, Peter Magyar acquired the constitutional authority to undertake reforms that previous opposition leaders scarcely had imagined. Yet, the fundamental question confronting Hungary is not whether Peter Magyar can govern. It is whether any prime minister, however determined, can reconstruct a country whose political institutions, economic structures, depleted finances, and civic culture have suffered from decades of accumulated dysfunction. The danger is that Hungarians may once again confuse the arrival of a new political personality with the birth of a new political order.
Historically, Hungary’s addiction to political Messiahs had been legendary. Just recently, from the authoritarian paternalism of the otherwise ruinously idiotic Miklos Horthy through the utopian promises of the Stalinistic rule of the so-called Communists, the fake reformist image of Janos Kadar, and the increasingly personalized Gangsterocracy of Viktor Orban, Hungarian political history demonstrates a recurring tension between individual authority and institutional accountability.
These regimes differed enormously in ideology, methods, and historical circumstances. Nevertheless, each illustrates the danger of subordinating political institutions to the supposed necessities of tyrannical leadership. The tragedy is not simply that particular leaders have disappointed the people. It is that the expectation of political salvation from above has too often displaced the harder work of building responsible government from below. Democracy cannot be established where there is an existential competition between successive Messiahs. Equally, a nation cannot become politically mature, while expecting its leaders to perform miracles.
Viktor Orban’s greatest, but extremely negative political achievement was not merely remaining in office for sixteen consecutive years. It was his destructively undemocratic actions to construct a system in which political authority extended deeply into institutions formally intended to operate independently. The judiciary, prosecutorial services, public media, state administration, economic patronage networks, and constitutionally protected offices became central subjects of domestic and European disputes over the rule of law. Removing Viktor Orban from office did not automatically eliminate the institutional habits created during his administration. Nor did it resolve the problem of political dependency, in which access to public resources, professional advancement, and economic opportunities could be influenced by relationships with those exercising political power.
Peter Magyar’s government has already initiated significant reforms, including measures directed at corruption, institutional restructuring, and restoring relations with the European Union. These developments deserve recognition. Yet, dismantling a political network is not equivalent to creating an impartial state. Replacing officeholders is not the same as changing the principles governing their offices. The decisive test is whether the new authorities establish institutions capable of restraining not only their predecessors, but themselves.
Peter Magyar possesses an extraordinary constitutional opportunity. His parliamentary supermajority provides the legal means to alter the institutional arrangements inherited from the Orban Gangsterocracy. Yet, this opportunity contains equally extraordinary dangers. The same concentration of parliamentary authority that enabled democratic reconstruction can also facilitate another cycle of political centralization. The fundamental problem with Hungary’s constitutional development has never been merely the identity of those exercising power. It has been the recurring temptation to treat constitutional law as an instrument of political victory.
Yet, a constitution must not become the property of whichever party commands two-thirds supermajority of Parliament. Hungary needs a constitutional order that protects the independence of the judiciary, guarantees genuine parliamentary oversight, strengthens local self-government, and prevents political monopolization of public institutions. More importantly, constitutional reform must establish limitations that remain effective even when the governing majority finds them inconvenient. Otherwise, Hungary risks exchanging one personalized political system for another, however different their political objectives may be.
Hungary’s post-1990 foreign policy presents another fundamental challenge. The country belongs to NATO and the European Union, yet its political debates have repeatedly treated European integration and national sovereignty as opposing principles. This uniquely Hungarian schizophrenic paradox has functioned throughout the nation’s chaotic history as a lethal psychological drug rooted in a false dichotomy. A sovereign democratic state can defend legitimate national interests, while honoring voluntarily accepted international obligations. Hungary’s security, prosperity, and international influence depend substantially upon the credibility of its relationships with democratic allies.
The enduring challenge is to replace tactical maneuvering with a coherent understanding of Hungary’s place in Europe. Past historical grievances, particularly those associated with the Treaty of Trianon, remain powerful elements of national memory. Yet, historical memory must not become a substitute for contemporary strategic judgment. Protecting Hungarian minorities abroad is a legitimate objective. However, it does not require antagonism toward neighboring states, or obstruction of common European policies. A modern Hungarian foreign policy must distinguish between defending national interests and perpetuating historical resentments.
Hungary’s reacquired independence in 1989 represented an extraordinary historical opportunity. Communist tyranny ended, multiparty politics started, and the country entered NATO, and the European Union. Yet, the transition also left unresolved questions concerning governance competency, political accountability, institutional integrity, economic opportunity, and the relationship between citizens, and the state. From the disaster of the irredeemable incompetent Jozsef Antall, through the return of the former Communists, and to the mentally challenged primitive dimwit Viktor Orban’s Gangsterocracy have proven that the desire for democracy could not guarantee the permanent consolidation of democratic political culture. The lesson of 1989 is, therefore, that political liberation and democratic consolidation are separate historical processes. Hungary now faces another opportunity to address that distinction. The challenge is to ensure that the political transformation of 2026 does not become another incomplete transition whose underlying weaknesses emerge only years later. Most importantly, Peter Magyar must understand that the reconstruction of Hungary is not the exclusive responsibility of the executive branch. It requires an independent judiciary, real political opposition, professional civil service, autonomous educational institutions, free media, competitive businesses, and citizens willing to hold their own political representatives accountable. Consequently, a successful reconstruction would make the personality of the prime minister less important to the functioning of the state. The main objective of the reconstruction cannot be to make Peter Magyar indispensable. It must be to make the Hungarian state capable of functioning properly regardless of who occupies the prime minister’s office.
The question posed by the editorial does not require a fatalistic answer. Hungary is not condemned by its history, and its political future is not predetermined by the failures of previous governments. Yet, neither can its reconstruction be accomplished through electoral victory, parliamentary arithmetic, or the charisma of a new leader. The genuine test of the Peter Magyar government is to establish strong institutions that make national salvation by any single man unnecessary.
In conclusion, one more essential warning. Since 1920, Hungarian politicians have repeatedly referenced the nonexistent “glorious” past. Although these references have regularly produced teary-eyed monologues, they have been rather destructive political answers for the present as well as the future. Events have proved again and again that the irrational notion “back to the past” makes it abundantly clear that Hungary needs a clean break with this past in order to build a new future, because at this miserable state of affairs nostalgia feels like a self-destructive suicidal nuclear bomb.