even if Magyar wins and Orbán accepts defeat, it is unclear exactly what the new PM will be able to do. “Orbán has been in power for 16 years,” says Freund, who returned last weekend from a fact-finding mission to Hungary.
“He has appointed everyone who is anyone in the public media, the courts, the state agencies, the central bank … If his appointees refuse, for example, to approve the new government’s budget, Tisza could be facing snap elections within a year.”
Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, is having a hard enough time rolling back the previous nationalist government’s judicial and other reforms, Freund noted – “and Law and Justice (PiS) had only been in power there for eight years. Magyar faces a truly formidable challenge”.
Plus, says Freund, when it comes to Hungary’s dealings with the EU, though a Tisza-led government “will want to avoid isolation, it won’t want to veto” – nobody should expect “a complete policy shift” on hot-button issues such as Ukraine or immigration.
According to the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/18/viktor-orban-hungary-parliamentary-election-eu-ukraine