Hungary’s election was presented as a democratic correction. In reality, it signals something more consequential: the dismantling of a sovereign, conservative democracy and the restoration of a liberal order increasingly governed from Brussels, writes Czech political analyst and journalist Ladislav Zemánek for Hungary Today.
What has happened in Hungary since the election? The simple answer is “regime change”. Péter Magyar and his supporters have described the result as a decisive break with the political system built by Viktor Orbán. His TISZA party secured a constitutional majority, and Magyar has promised to restore Hungary’s “European path”, strengthen ties with Brussels and implement reforms demanded by the European Union.
This is being praised as a successful “redemocratization” of Hungary. Yet Hungary is not merely changing government. It is being brought back into the liberal-democratic mainstream as defined by Brussels — a mainstream increasingly willing to tolerate authoritarian methods when they serve the right political ends.
Francis Fukuyama, the intellectual grandfather of the idea that liberal democracy represents the final stage of human history, has already praised Orbán’s defeat as a model for Americans confronting Donald Trump. That reaction is revealing. The Hungarian election is being celebrated not simply as a national decision, but as a victory in a wider ideological struggle against conservative, sovereign and populist politics.
Back to yesterday’s Europe
Magyar’s government has taken a step backwards. Budapest’s ambition to return to the “European mainstream” will hardly end well. What Brussels bureaucracy and Western liberalism represent is not the future, but decline and isolation: yesterday’s world rather than tomorrow’s.
Orbán’s Hungary, for all its flaws and mistakes, understood something important before many others did. It anticipated the emergence of a multipolar, post-Western order and attempted to adapt Hungarian and Central European interests to that reality. It cultivated partnerships with Americans, Chinese, Russians, fellow Europeans and others wherever this benefited Hungary. It advocated peace rather than permanent war.
The country became a forerunner of a post-liberal Europe in which freedom, sovereignty, people and tradition matter. That is why Orbán’s Hungary became such a thorn in the side. It challenged the assumption that every European government must accept the same political, cultural and geopolitical program.
For that reason, the Hungarian government had to be removed. And it was.
Brussels rewards its own
The silence from Brussels after Magyar’s government assumed power is telling — and entirely logical. Liberal democracy must be restored and the rebellious country pacified. There should be no naivety about political realities in today’s European Union. Brussels is seeking to tighten its grip, even at the cost of deeper intervention in national elections, media and the information space, and our fundamental rights.
Instruments such as the Digital Services Act and the European Democracy Shield are presented as safeguards against disinformation, foreign interference and malign actors. But any system that grants unelected supranational institutions and NGOs increasing power to determine what information is legitimate, which political forces are respectable and which opinions constitute a threat deserves scrutiny. Even our American allies have criticized the direction of European censorship policy.
The principle increasingly seems clear: extraordinary measures become acceptable when the liberal order is considered to be in danger. And it is in danger — across Europe.
The Orbán government was repeatedly condemned for alleged rule-of-law violations. Billions of euros were withheld from Hungary, demonstrating how EU funding and the rule-of-law mechanism could function as political levers. Once the government changed, the money began to move. This does not prove that every criticism of the former Hungarian government was unfounded. It does, however, raise a fundamental question: are the same standards being applied regardless of which political forces are in power?
The rules depend on the team
Magyar’s government has already taken decisions that have provoked controversy even among members of the transnational “Blob”. Yet no comparable punishment is expected from Brussels.
There will be no serious sanction for interference in the media and education system. No meaningful countermeasure for removing the president, chief prosecutor, intelligence chiefs, the head of the Constitutional Court and a wide range of senior officials. No expression of concern over the seizure of FIDESZ’s data servers. On the contrary, these developments are quietly welcome.
Why? Because TISZA is part of the “gang”. Magyar’s movement belongs to the same political network that dominates the European Parliament and the European Commission. Data show that TISZA has aligned with the European People’s Party in 84.3 per cent of European Parliament votes. The figure does not tell the whole story, but it reveals the direction of travel.
The new leaders in Budapest do not conceal their desire to bring Hungary closer to the euro-bureaucratic class and conform to its interests. The problem is that these circles often distrust sovereignty and genuine popular democracy while continuing to isolate Europe from the outside world and impose increasingly dangerous policies on member states and their citizens.
Most alarming is their approach to war. Rather than seeking a peaceful settlement, Brussels continues to push Europeans towards war with Russia — a confrontation that is not in Europe’s interest. Orbán’s government did the opposite. It resisted escalation and insisted that Hungary’s first responsibility was to protect its own citizens. For that position, Hungary had to be punished.
Nothing new under the sun
The campaign against the former government was not merely domestic. It was conducted from abroad and coordinated with Kyiv. Intelligence operations targeted senior Hungarian officials, including Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó.
Leaked communications and the wider political campaign revealed just how deeply concerned liberal globalists were about Hungary’s independent course.
There is nothing new under the sun. Donald Trump experienced a similar combination of institutional resistance, intelligence controversies, media hostility and persecution. Yet he defeated his opponents and promised to drain the swamp and break the deep state.
His story contains an important lesson for Central Europe. The world is changing. Political success stories can still be written in the West — and they are essential if the West is to be saved. Post-Orbán Hungary may eventually find that returning to the Brussels mainstream does not mean returning to normality. It means accepting the dictate, geopolitical impotence, ideological uniformity and woke agendas that Hungary’s previous government resisted.
But history is moving faster than Brussels. A broader Central Europe is no longer the periphery of Europe’s political future. It is becoming one of the places where that future will be decided. The countries that defend their sovereignty, preserve their identity and cooperate on their own terms may yet shape the Europe that comes next.
