Viktor Orbán has lost the elections. And he has recognized it. Which seeing how things are is also something notable. Hungarians have voted the end of an era. And they send a message to all of Europe. Goodbye to this autocratic, illiberal and anti-European populist, who turned Hungary into an ultra-conservative symbol against LGTBI rights, judicial independence and against Ukraine and the EU.
Peter Magyar, a 45-year-old former admirer of Orban who had his eye on him, won. Magyar invented a party against Orban, reappropriating his patriotic symbols and the motto God, Country and Family. He is conservative, but he is pro-European and not pro-Putin. And despite how conservative Magyar is, the most curious thing is how transversal its voters have been: 43% declare themselves liberal and a third left or green. Only 11% of those who voted for him consider themselves conservative.
Magyar has managed to unite all the discontented. Many people voted for him who do not share his ideology, but who do want to get rid of Orban. An interesting message for those who continue to believe that the only way to defeat the rise of the extreme right is antagonistic ideological purity.
Orban’s defeat is, furthermore, a before and after in the presumption of inevitability that the European extreme right recently enjoyed. And how those who are anti-system sooner or later become it. And the transgressor suddenly ages.
Hungarians must have come to the conclusion that perhaps gays, immigrants and Brussels were not entirely to blame for their problems. That the man who has been in charge for 16 years and blaming everything on conspiracies and external threats had some responsibility for how badly his economy is doing and for the corruption.
The support of Trump, Le Pen, Netanyahu and company has been of little use to Orban. Something changes with this defeat. A perception. If Orban can lose, so can his European and American admirers.
Moral?
Viktor Orban was not inevitable,
the extreme right is not unstoppable
