The biggest political earthquake of the weekend struck in Central Europe. Viktor Orbán, the Trump-backed strongman who had ruled Hungary for 16 years, was swept from power in an emphatic election result. Challenger Peter Magyar appears set to install a new government with enough parliamentary seats to overturn Orbán’s laws — a development that could reshape Hungary’s relationship with the European Union and its geopolitical alignment.
Orbán had been one of the longest-serving leaders in the EU and a figurehead for the illiberal nationalist movement in Europe. His close ties to Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin made his defeat a symbolically significant moment, watched closely in capitals from Brussels to Washington. The scale of Magyar’s victory suggests not merely a change of government but the potential dismantling of the legal and institutional architecture Orbán built over nearly two decades.
