After 16 years, Viktor Orbán loses

Good morning or your regal, as they say in Hungary. It's Monday the 13th of April and this is the Brussels Playbook podcast. The vibe in Brussels and Budapest today is that this is a new era. Victor Orban has lost. The longest-serving European Union leader, the man who has fought against the EU machine and stopped it from pushing through some of its most high profile policies, who is a friend of Vladimir Putin and was ferociously supported by Donald Trump. Who was accused by the European mainstream for curbing democracy and limiting media and judicial freedoms, who has sat around the EU table for the past 16 years. He suffered a crashing defeat in Hungary's general election last night. Peter Magger is in course for a huge majority. Over the next few minutes in the podcast this morning, we'll look at the result and discuss what it means for Hungary, for Europe and for the world. I'm Ian Wyshert, political senior EU politics editor. We're actually recording this shortly after midnight here in Brussels, so that we can talk with our two reporters on the ground in Budapest, who have been out with the two main parties and who have been covering the election there for the past few weeks. Max Greer has been with Peter Magger as victorious Tisa party and Jamie Deppma has been attending other watch parties around Budapest. Good morning gentlemen, so all-bound conceded defeat shortly after 9pm that was much earlier than we were expecting. He appeared to have tears in his eyes when he did it. And shortly after European Commission President Ursula von Dalyenso, often of course the brunt of Orban sharpist criticism, said Europe's heart is beating stronger in Hungary tonight. Jamie, do you just want to just set out the results for us? It's just stunning historic win and even better than I think Magger and Tisa were expecting. Out of the 199 seats they've got 138 seats. A huge majority. Oh, it was a two-thirds majority and hugely significant because it means he and he's already said he's going to start looking at it. He can start dismantling parts of the feeders designed governance that Orban has been doing last decade and he'll try to amend the Constitution as well. He'll have the votes to do it now. He's already said he wants the president to leave. He wants the, as he puts it, the various puppets that Orban had in place like in the Supreme Court, in the Curia, the Constitutional Court, and the Judicial Authority, the Media Authority. So he's got a huge mandate. This is of a revolutionary scale. It is a stunning win for Tisa. Yeah, and Max, you've been with the Tisa camp all evening. What's the atmosphere been like there? So right now, Magger's pitch is already over. People are drinking, dancing, celebrating. I just saw a huge congeline going on in front of the stage where Peter Magger addressed the country after his landslide victory. There were a lot of international journalists, a lot of international interest. In fact, they had to set up a whole tent in the street to host us all. It was a big surprise indeed that the results came so early and especially the conceding from Viktor Orban. Max, you've been there a few weeks on and off in Budapest. Did the Peter Magger camp see this coming? Were they optimistic? I know the polls were good for quite a while, but were they really that confident? At the beginning when I arrived, the hope was to get a simple majority that was what Tisa circles and other opposition figures were talking about. However, it's true that in the last week, Tisa circles started talking about the two thirds majority. That's because a series of failures of Orban's campaign, they point indicated that Tisa was gaining momentum. We're talking about the leaked phone calls between Foreign Minister Peter Cisarto and his counterpart Sergey Lavrov. We're talking about whistleblowers explaining how Orban had been using the state's structures to attack the opposition. All of these generated the perfect storm that gave Tisa the impression they could actually get to a two thirds. I think they were always concerned, though, about the history. In 2022, people thought that the opposition was going to win and didn't, he had a very big victory Orban then. So I think at the back of their mind, they thought that he would pull something out of that hat. The system in many ways has been game to favor feeders. So I think that they were always trying to restrain their confidence. I think another thing that really boosted, however, the feeling that they were going to have a big win was Orban consistently throughout this campaign focused not on the bread and butter issues, not on the economic issues, not about jobs, not about hospitals, not about the railway services, which had been cut and are deteriorating. He went for the old playbook that is used for the three previous elections of an external enemy. And that's not where the mind of Hungarians were. This was a parochial local vote in a way. They were concerned about how to get jobs, how to pay bills, how the economy can stop being flat lined and improve. And he didn't focus on only that. And Peter Maguire had a flawless campaign in the sense because. Sorry Jamie, why did that work every time since 2010 and not this year? Well I think because the economy was doing better in the past, that it was improving until the pandemic. So I think that that work better, that our focus wasn't so much on jobs and inflation and the cost of living. And I think there was just a different mindset in the electorate this time. Max, you've become something of a Peter Maguire specialist for us. He's one tonight, but he's quite a polarizing figure, isn't he? He's quite abrasive from what I've read. Indeed, indeed, he's quite a polarizing figure. As many people told me in the last weeks, people were going to vote against Fides, not for Peter Maguire, right? They saw him as a chance to change the government rather than a way to support his platform, his policy platform. In fact, his platform was all about getting rid of Orban. What are his biggest challenges now? As Jamie was saying, now with the true third majority, he can really change everything he promised. He can change the judicial system. He can implement the reforms that the commission is asking in terms of rule of law to gain all the funds. That will be in fact his first challenge, right? That's his main promise to bring the 18 billion in frozen funds back to Hungary. He said it in his speech a few hours ago now. His second main challenge will be to clear Hungary's position regarding the 90 billion euro loan to Ukraine. That's something that's a bit sensitive here in Hungary because after four years of hate campaigning by the Orban government in the streets and billboards against the Lensky especially, there's a white anti-Ukrainian sentiment. So, Magger needs to be careful and he's done that through the campaign not to give feeders and Orban material to attack him and say, "Oh, he's too much for Ukraine, right?" So now it remains to be seen how he will tackle this 90 billion loan question. The other key question now is how he can keep his base together, right? Because Magger has been voted in with votes from let-wing voters, green voters, liberal voters, conservative voters, disillusioned for those voters. So now, as soon as he needs to start making decisions, of course he will end up alienating parts of his base. So let's see. That point also is made to me by a momentum lawmaker the other day. Momentum is a centrist party that stood down in this election to give teaser an unencumbered clear straight run at Orban. I did ask how he thought it would play out if Magger did win and he said, "Yes, there are going to be some very serious fights politically because it's going very hard for him to satisfy this huge constituency he now has right across the ideological spectrum." Jamie, two brief questions for you. I know you've covered a lot of elections in Eastern Europe. How does this one compare? I was over at the teaser election party as well and went to some other election parties here in Budapest. Yes, they're very lively. People were very excited there. But what I did find interesting is the rest of the city is pretty calm. There's some parties over the seventh district. They're always parties in the seventh district. And so I was thinking you would know. I was thinking this is a revolution you may have went for Hungary. But the difference is, you know, I've had older than you. I covered a lot of central European countries at the end of communism. It doesn't have that feel. There's almost a feeling of I think everyone's quite kind of stunned at the size of this. And I sense relief amongst many people that Orban has gone because I think they felt suffocated. But there isn't as we were saying earlier, this warm embrace of Ormagia is a person either. So I think they're trying to absorb this. But the city outside the party area and away from the election headquarters is actually very quiet. And the other thing I wanted to ask Donald Trump and the Magger crowd obviously supported Orban. They came and they made it very clear they wanted him to be reelected. What does this do to their credibility now? They invested a huge amount here and I had been asking people what fall is the election, what the feeling is about whether this will be a blow for Magna, a blow for the global far right movement, because as you said, they came over here, JD Bands, Rubio, other populist leaders across Europe and as well. This is clearly going to be a bit of an intellectual ideological blow. Frank Faroude, who of course runs a think tank that is funded by the Hungarian government, by Orban's government, admitted this to me, he said, "Yes, this will be seen as a shock." Some of them will worry about whether it presiding that they're going to have electoral setbacks in the future, everyone's thinking about the midterm elections. And us being asked, we're going to try to see a trend immediately. And I think there are trends there, but I'm not too sure the lesson is just for the populist far right to heed. I think it's for all incumbent government's side that you've got to deliver on the bread and butter issues. It's the economy's stupid again. Yeah, always is. Thanks, Jamie. And Max, one last question to you. What's it been like in Hungary over these last few weeks for you as a journalist from Brussels, somebody who's not Hungarian? How has that felt for you covering this election? It's definitely been a rollercoaster of learning. I've met with over 50 people, over coffee, lunch, I've traveled to several villages in the countryside to meet with majors, to meet with civil society, to meet with Tisa people, to meet with Fidesz members. What you could feel is that definitely this election was the size of for both sides. Everyone I talked to were saying that they didn't know what to expect in this election. In fact, both sides, so it has an existential election. For Fidesz, it was a matter of continuing with the government, continuing with all the social structures they've also created, all the network of media, of think tanks they've created. While for Tisa, of course, it is and the rest of the position was of course a matter of getting rid of Orban and they saw this as a last chance for a Hungary to stop drifting away from the EU, the European consensus into and closer into Vladimir Putin's orbit. So this was indeed what the what the feeling was in the streets. And in fact, you've got a party, it's still going on, is it? It's still going on. It's still going on and it seems it will go for a while. The city at least the centre is full of people celebrating. Max, Jamie, thank you very much for joining us and thanks for your words from Budapest. Thanks so much. Thank you. I'm going to go have a beer then I'm going to go to sleep. Bye bye. Bye. So once again, thank you to Max Grira and Jamie Deppmer for talking to us from Budapest. Well, well, Hungary has been dominating. There are a couple more newslines on the PITICO website this morning that I want to just draw your attention to before we go. On the MFF, the EU's seven-year, approximately 1.8 trillion euro budget, the European Parliament is refusing to negotiate it until EU countries agree on its exact overall size. That would force the council to rip up its schedule, delay the start of formal negotiations till 2027 when we're reporting. And we learn that because people are using artificial intelligence to make their voices heard at the EU institutions, officials are struggling with a workload of answering them all when it comes to complaints and tender proposals and survey responses and that story is also on the website this morning. That's it from us today. Why don't you use the WhatsApp link in the show notes to tell us what you think of the night's election results? And thank you to the thousands of you who are already making us part of your morning routines. It really means a lot to us. Peter Magger has already said he has already spoken to Ursula von der Leyen, German Chancellor Merz, Mark Rutter, the Secretary General of NATO, and I'll leave you with something he said when he addressed the crowds in Budapest last night. Hungarian's Hungary will once again be a strong ally with the EU and with NATO. And that's all from us today. I'm Ian Wishart and we'll be back tomorrow. [Music]