Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, a lodestar for MAGA culture warriors and right-wing populists in Europe, conceded defeat on Sunday in a general election, breaking the momentum of a global nationalist revival promoted by President Trump.
Speaking to supporters Sunday evening in Budapest, Mr. Orban said the “election results, although not complete, are understandable and clear. They are painful for us but unequivocal.”
He congratulated the opposition, saying: “The responsibility and opportunity to govern were not given to us.”
But, he vowed in his surprisingly early concession speech: “We are not giving up. Never, never, never.”
Sunday’s vote was widely seen as showdown between friends and foes of liberal democracy, a cause that Mr. Orban has battled against for years to applause from his fans in the United States, Europe and Latin America. It was closely watched by the Trump administration and the Kremlin, both of which wanted Mr. Orban to win and both of which offered support in his campaign.
With 66 percent of votes counted, the opposition Tisza party was on course to win 137 seats — more than a two-thirds majority — with Mr. Orban’s party, Fidesz, expected to win just 55. The opposition leader is a former Orban loyalist, Peter Magyar, who broke away in 2024.
Shortly before polls closed, the electoral authorities said that more than 77 percent of registered voters had cast ballots, the highest turnout in a Hungarian election since the collapse of Communism in 1989 and the start of democracy.
“Hungary’s fate will be decided today, for a long time to come,” Mr. Magyar said early Sunday as he went to vote. He later noted that Election Day was the anniversary of a 2003 vote in favor of joining the European Union, a sign that he wanted to end the Orban government’s antagonism toward the bloc.
Mr. Orban, whose party won the four previous elections easily, acknowledged on Sunday that he faced a very tight race that could hinge on just a few votes. Casting the vote as a choice between peace and war, as he has throughout the campaign, he appealed to supporters on Facebook.
“Hungary’s peace and security could depend on one vote today,” Mr. Orban said. “This is a decision that we can’t undo tomorrow. Today we have to protect Hungary! Today no patriot can stay at home!”
The consequences of the outcome reach far beyond Hungary’s borders. They could help alter the course of the war in Ukraine, a neighbor that Mr. Orban has cast as an enemy of Hungary, and affect European security. They will also be looked at by populists around the world who view the Hungarian leader as a model of success and of pugnacious defiance of the mainstream.
Mr. Orban remade Hungary in his own image, eliminating many checks and balances by stacking the judicial system and nominally independent agencies with Fidesz loyalists, and taking control of most news media outlets. He also worked to export his model of “illiberal democracy,” promoting himself as an invincible guru for followers across Europe and elsewhere.
Sunday’s election results are likely to disappoint President Trump, who sent Vice President JD Vance to Budapest, the Hungarian capital, last week to rally support for Mr. Orban in the final stretch of the campaign.
“I love Viktor,” said Mr. Trump, speaking by telephone from Washington to a gathering of Fidesz supporters in Budapest on Tuesday.
But Mr. Orban’s defeat will delight liberals and the European Union, which had increasingly come to view him as a disruptive menace.
Long a thorn in the side of E.U. officials in Brussels, Mr. Orban has consistently blocked European assistance to Ukraine, worked to water down sanctions on Russia and presented Ukraine, not Russia, as the principal threat to Europe’s security.
Those positions made him an invaluable ally for the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin. Mr. Putin, hoping to help Mr. Orban’s chances in the election, assured him last month that Hungary could rely on steady deliveries of Russian oil and gas despite disruptions to global energy supplies caused by the war in Iran.
Andrew Higgins is the East and Central Europe bureau chief for The Times based in Warsaw, on temporary assignment in Shanghai.
The post Hungary’s Orban, Beacon to the Right, Concedes Election Defeat appeared first on New York Times.
