The victory of Péter Magyar over Viktor Orbán in Hungary's election has profound significance, not just for Hungarians but for the rest of the world too, argue Jon Bloomfield and David Edgar
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Viktor Orbán, the country’s four-time Prime Minister, first elected in 2010, has been the creator and arch-promoter of national populism’s core philosophy of ‘illiberal democracy.’ The former liberal dissident, aided in the 1980s by the George Soros foundation, swung his Fidesz party dramatically to the right in the 2000s. Once elected Prime Minister in 2010, he oversaw the take-over of the judiciary and most of the media by Fidesz loyalists as well as ensuring ownership and control of key companies was secured by his cronies.

He has combined this institutional power-grab with assertive policies in support of traditional Christian family values and an increasingly vicious rhetoric against foreigners and migrants, particularly Muslims, becoming one of the foremost proponents of the conspiratorial Great Replacement theory. He and his Government have increasingly directed their nationalist rhetoric against the European Union, echoed Russian arguments in EU discussions, and for the last four years obstructed every effort by the EU to rally support for Ukraine.

Standard Bearer of the Populist Right

Thus, for a decade and a half Orbán has been the primary flag-bearer of the national populist right, its voice in Europe’s corridors of power and the mentor to aspiring fellow-travellers across the world. He has been central to building a far-right alliance in the European parliament including France’s Marine Le Pen, the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders, Spain’s Vox and Austria’s Freedom Party, and his ‘Patriots for Europe’ is now the Parliament’s third-largest faction.
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Regularly feted by the organising core of the American populist right – the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) – Orbán’s policies and methods were seen as a central influence on Project 2025, the blueprint for Trump’s second term, which has been described as a plan to ‘Orbánise’ the US government.

The Trump administration has assiduously followed the Orbán view on Europe’s slide into decadence and decline as outlined in its National Security Strategy. Trump has welcomed Orbán to the White House and Vice-President JD Vance, at the height of the Iran war, saw his priority to be to make a direct intervention in the Hungarian election, visiting Budapest to speak in Orbán’s support at a triumphalist, Trump-style eve-of-poll rally.

https://www.bylinesupplement.com/p/has-the-forward-march-of-populism