This week, Zachary and Jeremi speak with UT Austin professor Lorinc Redei about Hungary\u2019s recent election, in which longtime prime minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n was defeated by opposition leader P\u00e9ter Magyar, and what may come next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lorinc Redei is the assistant dean for undergraduate education and an associate professor of instruction at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He is from Hungary and an expert on the politics of that country, policy-making in Europe, democratic backsliding, and international relations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This week, Zachary and Jeremi speak with UT Austin professor Lorinc Redei about Hungary\u2019s recent election, in which longtime prime minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n was defeated by opposition leader P\u00e9ter Magyar, and what may come next. Lorinc Redei is the assistant dean for undergraduate education and an associate professor of instruction at the LBJ School of […]","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":true,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","episode_type":"audio","audio_file":"http:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/this-is-democracy\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/17\/2026\/04\/2026-04-23_this-is-democracy_Hungarian-elections_v2.mp3","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"00:33:24","filesize":"45.86M","filesize_raw":"48091952","date_recorded":"2026-04-24 16:18:06","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":""},"tags":[],"categories":[],"series":[2,891],"class_list":{"0":"post-4021","1":"podcast","2":"type-podcast","3":"status-publish","5":"series-this-is-democracy","6":"series-default-podcast","7":"entry"},"acf":{"related_episodes":"","hosts":[{"ID":301,"post_author":"10","post_date":"2019-01-15 11:25:23","post_date_gmt":"2019-01-15 17:25:23","post_content":"I am a child of the global transformations that re-made societies in the last century\u2013war, migration, nation-building, and mobility through higher education. All of my research, writing, and teaching seeks to explain these transformations\u2013their diverse origins, their contradictory contours, and their long-lasting effects. My scholarship is therefore an extended inquiry into the workings of power at local and international levels, and the interactions across these levels. Like other historians, I treat power as contingent, context-dependent, and often quite elusive. Like practitioners of politics, I view power as essential for any meaningful achievement, especially in the realms of social justice and democratization.\n\nMy hope is that my work will reach a broad and diverse audience of citizens. Scholarship cannot substitute for real-lived experience, but I believe it can enhance our contemporary understanding of the choices we confront in the allocation of our resources, the structuring of our communities, and the judgment of merit. In this framework, international, transnational, and global history should contribute to better thinking about current international, transnational, and global problems. I am a proponent of historical and political studies that are broad, compelling, creative, and, ultimately, useful. We should research with Monkish rigor, as we write (and lecture) with novelistic flair.\n\nResearch interests\nThe formation and spread of nation-states; the emergence of modern international relations; the connections between foreign policy and domestic politics; the rise of knowledge institutions as global actors.\n\nCourses taught\nInternational History since 1898; The Past and Future of Global Strategy; American Foreign Relations\n\nAwards, Honors\nRecognized as one of \"America's Top Young Innovators\" by Smithsonian Magazine; Class of 1955 Distinguished Teaching Award, University of Wisconsin","post_title":"Jeremi Suri","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"jeremi-suri","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2022-06-02 13:27:50","post_modified_gmt":"2022-06-02 18:27:50","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/this-is-democracy\/?post_type=speaker&p=301","menu_order":0,"post_type":"speaker","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":820,"post_author":"10","post_date":"2019-08-19 13:47:33","post_date_gmt":"2019-08-19 18:47:33","post_content":"\n
Zachary Suri is a host, co-producer, and poet-in-residence for This is Democracy.\u00a0Zachary is an undergraduate at Yale University, where he studies languages, history, and literature. He writes regularly for the Yale Daily News.\u00a0Zachary\u2019s poetry has been published by numerous publications, including\u00a0CNN.com<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Urbanitus.com<\/a>. He was the 2022-2023 Austin Youth Poet Laureate and a recipient of the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards Silver Key and AISD Trustees\u2019 Scholar Award. You can hear him discuss his poetry on\u00a0public radio<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","post_title":"Zachary Suri","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"zachary-suri","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2025-09-09 12:12:36","post_modified_gmt":"2025-09-09 17:12:36","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/this-is-democracy\/?post_type=speaker&p=820","menu_order":0,"post_type":"speaker","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"guests":[{"ID":2425,"post_author":"23","post_date":"2021-06-15 11:34:52","post_date_gmt":"2021-06-15 16:34:52","post_content":"\n Dr. Lorinc Redei is a professor at the LBJ School at the University of Texas at Austin, where he serves as the graduate advisor for the Global Policy Studies Program. He previously served as a press officer in the European Parliament, the directly elected legislature of the European Union. Redei's research and writing focus on European politics, the European Union, and the role of the European Parliament.<\/p>\n","post_title":"Dr. Lorinc Redei","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"dr-lorinc-redei","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2021-06-15 11:34:52","post_modified_gmt":"2021-06-15 16:34:52","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/this-is-democracy\/?post_type=speaker&p=2425","menu_order":0,"post_type":"speaker","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"transcript":" 2026-04-23 – This is Democracy [00:00:20] Zachary: Hello and welcome to our latest episode of This Is Democracy. I’m Zachary Siri. We’re joined of course, as always by Professor Jeremi Suri. Good morning.<\/p>\n [00:00:28] Jeremi: Good morning, Zachary.<\/p>\n [00:00:29] Zachary: And, uh, today we are, we have the privilege of speaking with someone who is an expert.<\/p>\n Um, and so I’m with a personal connection to, uh, an issue that’s been in the news of late, um. And, uh, something that has been on the minds of not just, uh, you know, political observers around the world, those sort of politicos of the world, but also, uh, on the minds of American political leaders as well, um, who also have at least some of them for particular personal connection to this topic.<\/p>\n We’re speaking of course, about the recent elections in Hungary that saw, um, the, uh, long awaited fall of Victor Orban, uh, the longest serving. Um, prime Minister in Europe and one who’s often been accused of, of authoritarian tendencies. Um, today joining us to speak about this important issue is, um, Lorinc Redei.<\/p>\n Uh. Lorinc Redei. I is the assistant Dean for undergraduate education and an associate professor of instruction at the LPJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He is from Hungary and he’s also an expert on the politics of that country, on policymaking in Europe, democratic backsliding, and international relations more broadly.<\/p>\n Uh, professor Redei, I thank you so much for joining us.<\/p>\n [00:01:47] Lorinc Redei: Oh, you’re very welcome. Glad to be with you.<\/p>\n [00:01:49] Zachary: Wonderful. Well, um. I think the first question that has to be asked, um, you know, we’re talking about the politics of a country. It’s relatively small. Why was Victor Orban so high profile in the world, and how did he become such a favorite of the global Right and the American right in particular?<\/p>\n [00:02:07] Lorinc Redei: That’s a great question and I think it’s the right one to start with. Um, if you think about the fact that Hungary is a small, landlocked country with fewer than 10 million people, um, uh. People really shouldn’t know Victor Ban’s name. There’s no good reason to. Um, if I asked you who’s the prime Minister of Slovenia, um, I don’t think you’d be able to, to say, um, whereas Victor Orban was, um, has been in the, the global conversation about, um, democracy, democratic backsliding, um, and, um, what, what he has called, uh, illiberal democracy for, for over a decade and a half.<\/p>\n Um, and there are several reasons for that. Um. I think the first one is that, um, Victor Orban was a front runner in this process of, um, what Kimley Shepp at Princeton has called autocratic legalism, which is this idea that you have a democratic elected government that slowly but surely and very methodically and incrementally gets rid of the checks and balances against executive power via legal means.<\/p>\n Um, and he has been doing this for over 15 years. Um, and so he was kind of the, the first to, to, to do it and also one of the smartest leaders to do it. So he is become a model for a lot of other, uh, populist, uh, authoritarian leaders who. Wish to follow in his footsteps. So if you look at the policies and um, uh, political strategies of, uh, whether it’s Bolsonaro or Javier millet or, um, even some respects, uh, Erdogan in Turkey or indeed of the, um, the, the Trump administration, you see, um, echoes of and um, uh.<\/p>\n And sort of, sort of copycat, uh, versions of, of what he was doing. Um, so he’s been, he’s been doing this for a very long time. And then second, he’s also very actively sought this role of being the leader of this, uh, this, this movement of right wing. Um. Uh, populist leaders who want to dismantle what, what they see as, um, unjust, uh, and unreasonable shackles on their, on their own power.<\/p>\n Um, and so if you think about his presence, uh, even in US politics for instance, you know, he’s spoken multiple times at the Conservative Political Action Conference, um, which is basically the, um, uh, American conservatives, um. Yearly convention to talk about what their, what their party’s platform is going to be.<\/p>\n Um, he’s the only foreign leader who is named in, uh, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump’s presidential debate where Donald Trump brought him up. Right? So he has a, an outsize weight and, um, he’s a, he’s a symbol of this, of this illiberal democracy worldwide.<\/p>\n [00:05:07] Zachary: Um, could you maybe also give us a sense of where his politics come from on a more sort of personal level? I understand that at least soon after the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of communist rule in Hungary, Orban was seen as a liberalizing figure.<\/p>\n [00:05:24] Lorinc Redei: Absolutely. I mean, his party, um, is called fi, which is, uh. An acronym of, uh, Fiat Democrat Tax, which basically means an alliance of young Democrats. And in 1989, Warban was a, a, a very young, um, university student, um, very strident liberal. Um, his party was made up, uh, very strongly of, of, of university students who wanted free elections, who wanted the Russians to leave Hungary after the fall of the Berlin Wall.<\/p>\n Um, so his roots are very much in this, in this, in this liberal politics. Um. And over the, the next few decades, his politics have, have shifted. Um, he’s become much more conservative. He’s become much more nationalist. Um, and he’s basically turned his back on a lot of liberal principles and a lot of progressive principles that he used to hold.<\/p>\n Um, and so one of the things that I think is important to remember about him is that, um, especially even in the past, you know, decade or so that he’s been in power, um. He and his party have actually been quite flexible when it comes to ideology and, and policy positions. Um, what they have been not flexible about is making sure that, um, that their, um, electoral success and their, their, their power in government, um, should not be questioned and should be very, very hard to dislodge.<\/p>\n So, um, you know, in some ways they’re very. Pro market, um, in other ways. They have, for instance, uh, argued for controlling, um, uh, the prices of basic goods like, you know, bread and milk and gasoline and things like that. Um, in some ways they are, um, uh, sort of, you know, open to, um, uh. Uh, to, to, to the European Union and to, um, uh, and, and to western ideas.<\/p>\n And, and sometimes with the other breath, they, uh, they decry, um, the influence of Brussels and of global liberal elites in Hungary. So, um, ideologically there’s not a real through line. Um, the, the, the populism and the democratizing are really the, the, the stable parts of, of, of the platform of both him and his party, ADEs.<\/p>\n [00:07:38] Jeremi: So, so then Lorinc, how did it go wrong, uh, for him in the, in this election? I mean, you’ve described someone who’s a very savvy, skilled shapeshifter and able to hold onto power and manufacture, authoritarian, uh, control over a society and authoritarian influence broadly, um, without ideological consistency, but as you said, with an autocratic consistency.<\/p>\n How did he lose control of things?<\/p>\n [00:08:05] Lorinc Redei: So there’s two sides of that. I think. One is, um, what went wrong for him and the other is what went right for the opposition. So lemme start with the first one for what went wrong for, for Victor Orban. Um, there’s a couple of things here. So the first is, um, we need to remember that. Victor Orban and, and, and, and Hungary for the past 15 years has been a system that political scientists call it, um, competitive authoritarianism, which means that it’s, it’s it’s authoritarian, but crucially, it’s also still competitive.<\/p>\n Elections are still competitive. Um, parties can, um, uh, can enter the political arena and while the playing field is tilted against them, um, these elections still can bring about a result where the government loses, which is what happened 10 days ago. Um, the, the institutions allowed for this kind of loss.<\/p>\n Um, uh, it’s just a question of why it happened. So in terms of why Aurban lost some of his control over Hungarian politics, I, there, I think there’s a few reasons. The first is simple, um, fatigue, uh, ban has been in power for 16 years. Um, so there are voters who were two years old the last time that there was a different prime minister, um, in, in power.<\/p>\n And so. At a certain point, you know, in our current political and, and, and just general culture, um, where novelty is, is very important. Um, people just got tired of it. Um, the second thing is that the message that the government had, um, in this campaign, um, was a continuation of a very fear-based rhetoric that FI had adopted in the past, uh, decade and a half.<\/p>\n And there was always a, a, a different. uh, for for whom the Hungarian people should be afraid of. Um, during the migration crisis in 2015, it was, um, Syrian refugees. Um, then it was, um, the philanthropist George Soros with his, um, uh, sort of corrupt ideas. Then it was Brussels who, uh, was trying to push EU policies down, uh, Hungarian’s throats without consulting them.<\/p>\n Um, then it was the L-G-B-T-Q uh, community that was. Somehow trying to, um, uh, ruin, ruin Hungary’s children. Um, and then recently it was Ukraine, um, which was trying to drag Hungary into a war that didn’t want to participate in. And the trick with this is that, um, you know, fear works if you can, if you can drum up this, this, this fear-based rhetoric and there’s real, uh, if there’s real danger. But at the end of the day, none of these were actually real threats to Hungarian society. Um, there are actually very few migrants who ended up wanting to stay in Hungary. Um, there is no, um, attempt by, by, by Brussels to to force its way onto, um, uh, Hungarian social rules. And even when there is, there’s a hungry participates in those decision making, uh, processes.<\/p>\n Um, the. Ukraine war is now two years old, and there’s still no real fear among anybody in, um, or among the majority of po uh, of the population in Hungary, of being drafted and being sent to fight in, uh, in, in a war against Russia. And so I think there’s just this fatigue with the, with the, with the fear as well.<\/p>\n Um, so I think, I think those things mattered. And then finally, you know, after 16 years in government, it’s also very hard for anybody in power to run from his or her record. Um, once you’ve been in power for 16 years, and remember too, Orban had a two thirds majority in parliament, meaning a super majority in Parliament for this entire time, which means, um, he could literally pass any law that he wanted without consulting the opposition.<\/p>\n He could amend the constitution if he wanted without consulting the opposition. So he had all of the levers of power at his disposal. So whatever’s kind of wrong with the country. Um, it’s very hard to make an argument that it’s other people’s fault, um, if you’ve been in charge for 16 years and because, you know, the economic situation in Hungary has not been great for the past, um, uh, past few years, um, with high inflation and, and, and poor state of public services and dilapidated hospitals and, um, not enough money spent on education.<\/p>\n Um, these things started to be real liabilities for the government.<\/p>\n [00:12:24] Jeremi: Got it.<\/p>\n [00:12:24] Zachary: That makes sense. Um, who is Peter Magyar, this sort of opposition leader who is now on track to be Prime Minister and, and how different is he from Orban in his, in his politics? Or is he just a new face?<\/p>\n [00:12:39] Lorinc Redei: I mean, I think this is the big question. So, um, the. Incoming presumed Prime Minister, um, was actually a very much associated with es. He was a ES party member. Um, he was part of ban’s, uh, regime. He led a bunch of state led enterprises, um, and was part of this relatively, you know, um, corrupt scheme of, you know, um, keeping a lot of, um, economic actors tied to the government’s interests.<\/p>\n Um, his ex-wife was the Minister of Justice, so he was very much. In the, in the inner circles of, of the, of the FIAs family. Um, and it was only two years ago that he broke with FIAs, um, and started to expose a lot of its corruption, um, from the inside using a lot of his inside knowledge. And what’s important to remember is that in some ways PE Mare is, um, quite similar to Orban.<\/p>\n Um, he is, um, uh. Quite, um, aggressive in his tone. Um, when you hear him speak, he is, uh, he’s a nationalist, he is conservative. Um, he isn’t, I think a, um, loud, standard bearer for plural is democracy. Um, but at the same time he has managed to, um, become the face of a united opposition against, against Orban by. that what he’s going to do is not just, um, become the new face of a, of an authoritarian government, but rather to dismantle this, this system of both corruption and of executive overreach that, um, that Orban had built over the past few, um, uh, past few years. Um, and so. He’s an interesting figure.<\/p>\n Um, and I think he was uniquely placed to be able to unite the opposition, uh, against, uh, against FIAs, which is why he managed to pull off this feet of not only unseating, uh, uh, Victor Orban, but of getting a two third super majority in the Parliament himself, which gives him the tools to potentially undo some of these, um, some of these legal moves that that had been accruing over the past decade and a half.<\/p>\n [00:14:49] Jeremi: Lorinc, what? What protection is there against Maar? Just becoming another Audubon.<\/p>\n [00:14:57] Lorinc Redei: I think this is the central question of the next two, three years. Um, if you look at the composition of the Hungarian Parliament, uh, as it’s going to, to take office, uh, in the next few weeks, you have three parties in the Parliament, which is already fewer parties than most, um, European, uh, democracies have.<\/p>\n One party is, um, uh, Al party, which is basically a center right conservative party that hopefully stands for, uh, uh, principles of, of liberal democracy. You have a more far right party in es, uh, that’s still, you know, one over a third of the vote and, um, is going to be represented, uh, in, in, in the parliament.<\/p>\n And then you have the real far right, the, the true fascists. So if you think about it, I can’t think of another example of a consolidated democracy having three parties in parliament that are all significantly to the right of center. There’s not a single person in the parliament who is a liberal, who is a green, who is a leftist, who’s a socialist, who’s a communist.<\/p>\n Any, any other of, of, of those flavors of politics,<\/p>\n [00:16:09] Jeremi: Not a single one, Lorinc.<\/p>\n [00:16:10] Lorinc Redei: Not a single one.<\/p>\n [00:16:11] Jeremi: Wow.<\/p>\n [00:16:12] Lorinc Redei: And so, um. Interestingly, there’s not going to be very much, um, institutional, um, constraints from within the parliament, um, to, to to keep, um, uh, pay honest. Where I do think that you have a lot of, um, uh, a lot of constraints is the actual population and civil society because.<\/p>\n There’s a very, very large portion of, uh, those people who voted for the Tessa party who did not vote for that party because they thought. Um, this party represented their interests or represented their, um, political ideologies, but because they saw this as the, the last hope to get rid of, uh, uh, the Orban regime.<\/p>\n Um, and so what’s gonna be really interesting is how are these, um, people, and these are represented by civil society organizations, um, uh, by. Volunteers or simply just, um, as, as voting citizens, how are their views going to be taken account, um, by this new government that can’t really afford to lose all of these voters?<\/p>\n Um, and I actually, I’m not sure how that’s going to happen, but I think it’s one of the, the fundamental challenges facing this new government is to make sure that it really does represent that really, really broad consensus that brought them to power. But that is not actually represented formally in the Parliament itself.<\/p>\n [00:17:37] Jeremi: mm.<\/p>\n [00:17:39] Zachary: That makes sense. I, I, I wanna ask about a different issue, which I think, I think for many American voters at least, who are used to hearing ban’s, regime as described as authoritarian, the sort of transfer of power. That we’ve seen and his quick admission of defeat was somewhat surprising. Why do you think it was that Orban embraced this sort of peaceful transfer of power so readily or, or has he, and maybe it’s a false impression.<\/p>\n [00:18:05] Lorinc Redei: No, he has, and I think that’s a really important, uh, point to make. Um, I will out myself that I’m not a huge supporter of Victor Orban and his regime. Um, maybe that’s not a huge surprise, but what I will say is that Orban has never in his tenure, um, resorted to violence. So unlike the Putin regime where if you recognize, if you, if you criticize the regime, um, you might find that, um, you know, it’s very slippery on the fifth floor of a hotel.<\/p>\n Um, and you fall out of the window or you find, you know, uranium in your underpants or you get poisoned, right? Like, that does not happen in Hungary. And similarly, there has never been a, a, a protest against the government and there’s been a lot of protests that has been put down violently. I think Orban.<\/p>\n Legitimately does have some personal and philosophical limits to how far he’s willing to go, and I can’t see him really using violence to, to hang onto power. This was made even, um, this was reinforced, I should say, by the fact that in the last two weeks of the campaign, um, members of the Armed Forces, the police forces and the Secret Service all came forward.<\/p>\n Uh. Basically saying that the Orban regime has overly politicized these institutions and they’ve had enough of it, which also created this, um, I think doubt in anybody who would’ve even been tempted to use violence to, to hold onto power of whether those, um, institutions that that wield force, actual force in, in society would actually follow orders to, um, uh, to, to keep this, this regime in power.<\/p>\n Um. I was a tiny bit surprised also at how early Orban conceded, um, because only about 30% of the, um, results had been in when he called pie major to concede defeat. Um, but I also think he knew that the writing was on the wall. Um, I don’t think he was surprised by, by the result. Um, I think he knew a few days before that this is what, what was going to happen.<\/p>\n Um. And so, um, so I wasn’t that surprised by it. Um, I think if the vote had been much closer than we may have seen a situation where there’s allegations of impropriety and of, uh, you know, the votes being counted incorrectly, or election fraud being being leveled. But because the margin of victory for Bean MAA party was so large, I think that was just not a viable option either.<\/p>\n [00:20:41] Jeremi: Yeah. To me, Lorinc, that was what was really striking was not that Orban lost, but that he lost so big, even beyond what the polls were predicting. Um, with such high turnout, right, with close to 80% of Hungarians coming out, coming out to vote against, uh, Orban. Is this the end of Orban? Is this the beginning of a new.<\/p>\n Trend away from the right in Europe, or is this specific to Hungary? How do, how do you see the, you are a scholar of the wider European continent, so how do you see it in that context?<\/p>\n [00:21:13] Lorinc Redei: Yeah, I think there’s a lot of questions in there. So the first thing I think that’s interesting is that the polls were actually exactly right. So the independent polling that had been following what the, um, what the support for each party was? I think they were, they, they were so accurate that people were actually very, very surprised.<\/p>\n Um, the pro-government think tanks that were trying to, um, show polling numbers that. Was essentially propaganda. They were shown that it was shown that their polling was terrible. So it was really interesting that, um, polling was actually incredibly accurate in, in, uh, predicting the result. It’s just many people, even when they saw the polls, they didn’t believe them.<\/p>\n ’cause they said that that can’t be right. Um, in terms of the. Magnitude of the victory. I think you’re right, that the, the turnout was quite high. It was 78%, which is the largest turnout that Hungary has had in any of its free elections since 1989. And what that also means is that you’ve had a lot of, um, new voters who came to the polls, which essentially means predominantly young people, um, who haven’t had a chance to vote before.<\/p>\n And that certainly helped, uh, the TISA party gain its majority. Um, if you look at what. Is the best determinant of whether you are a supporter of, of TISA or of Orban Es party. The younger you are, the more likely it is that you’re going to vote for tisa. The more educated you are, the more likely it is that you’re going to vote for tisa.<\/p>\n And the larger the town or city that you live in, the more likely it is that you’re going to vote for tisa. And these are all kind of linear, um, uh, correlations, right? So, um, so he, he, he managed to assemble this, this quite. Um, quite large majority. Um, and in terms of what happens to Orban, which is the second question, this is really tricky because in any other, I would say normal, uh, democratic system, if you have a party that underperforms this much compared to the last election, the automatic thing that would happen is that the leader of that party would resign on election night. That has not happened. Orban has not resigned.<\/p>\n [00:23:16] Jeremi: Hmm.<\/p>\n [00:23:16] Lorinc Redei: This is, this is interesting because I think FIAs faces a particularly tough dilemma here. What I think people need to understand is that, um, FIAs by now is not a traditional European party. In some ways, it’s much closer to what the Republican Party is in the US today, which is that it’s a, um, it’s a party extremely focused on one personality.<\/p>\n The, the leader at the top. It’s almost like a personality called for Victor Orban. And so many of its voters vote for FIAs, not because they really have any deep connection to the, the party’s priorities or its policies, but rather because they’re big fans of Victor Orban. And so if Orban resigns, some of those people might, might leave, might leave the party, and the, and the party might, might suffer, suffer more.<\/p>\n Um, electorally on the other hand. If he stays, um, then, you know, he’s the, the, the face of this previous electoral defeat. And there are a lot of people in the party now who are going to be at each other’s throats. There’s fewer resources in order to, you know, to buy the loyalty of different, uh, different party, uh, party members and, and, and economic actors who are aligned with the party.<\/p>\n Um, so there’s a smaller pie to fight over. Um, and there’s a lot of finger pointing going on of who’s to blame for this electoral defeat.<\/p>\n [00:24:44] Jeremi: Hmm.<\/p>\n [00:24:44] Lorinc Redei: And so, um, if, uh, if Orban stays, then you have this, this party that has been proven to, um, to be a party that loses, um, stay in, stay in. If, if, if Orban stays in power, then that doesn’t change.<\/p>\n So either way, I think the fi desk party is going to lose more supporters. And this is what’s really interesting is that, um, polling. Polling organizations have continued to actually do polling AF even after the elections, which I think is a little bit unusual to see whom people support. And the support of the TISA party has grown exponentially since the election.<\/p>\n [00:25:20] Jeremi: Wow.<\/p>\n [00:25:20] Lorinc Redei: So now it has the support of 66% of the population, which is insane. Like that’s, that’s a really hard high, high, high. Um, um. A high threshold. And so I think, you know, no matter what the FIAs and Victor Orban are going to get weaker within Hungarian politics. And I don’t really see a way for, um, for Orban to kind of, um, revive himself and come back like a phoenix risen from the ashes and, and take back power.<\/p>\n I, I actually don’t think that’s, that’s very, very likely, um, in terms of what it means for the region, which is the third question you asked. Right? I think, um, it’s a little bit, um. Too early to say, this is the, the sort of beginning of the end for, um, uh, for, for, for right wing forces. We just had elections in Bulgaria.<\/p>\n We’re a, um, relatively pro-Russian candidate won. Um, he’s not, you know, in, in other ways he’s not autocratic. So, um, uh, it’s not an exact analogy, right. But, um, but there’s plenty of, uh, of, of right wing, um, autocratic leaning. Elected leaders in, in, in Europe and in Eastern Europe, um, who are still going strong.<\/p>\n What I think is true is that their, the, their intellectual leader is now discredited and I don’t really see anybody taking up that mantle, um, of being the global face of this, um, uh, far right illiberalism. So in that sense, I think it’s going to be weakened. But the other thing that is important here is a lot is going to depend on how. And Mod is able to undo some of those democratizing steps that have taken place over the past 15 years because here there’s a lot of dilemmas about how you go about doing that without basically using the same illiberal tools that that got us here in the first place. Um, and you know, Poland went through this a few years ago where they’re still grappling with this problem, but we can talk about that more later if you wish.<\/p>\n [00:27:16] Zachary: That makes sense. Uh, as we begin to close up, I do wanna ask what you feel like the lessons from Hungary. Are for countries and populations that are facing similar efforts to, uh, entrench the kind of democratic illiberalism that Orban championed. Um, do you think these elections offer a sort of roadmap for how to defeat or counter that kind of politics?<\/p>\n Or is it more complicated than that?<\/p>\n [00:27:47] Lorinc Redei: I wouldn’t phrase these as as hard and fast rules, but I think there are some lessons that we can learn. I think the first lesson is that as long as the. in which we are operating is still a competitive authoritarian system rather than an actual dictatorship. There is always a chance to vote the bums out. Um, you just have to have enough people go to the polls and vote, vote these people out. Um, the second lesson is about how do you get enough people to do that? And I think there’s a couple of lessons here. I think the first is that you. You require a very united opposition. One of the things that has happened, um, under this TISA party, which is, is quite, um, striking, is that, um, the, the TISA party, um, in 2026 got 1.4 million more votes than the United opposition did in 2022.<\/p>\n In 2022, there was also this, you know. This, this attempt to create a united opposition against the what ban. Um, and it gathered some votes, obviously, but but not enough to, to, um, uh, to change the, the outcome. Um, TISA got 1.4 million more votes. That’s a lot when you’re thinking about the total, um, number of eligible voters as 8 million in in in Hungary.<\/p>\n And what’s interesting about that is that. Of these 1.4 million voters that it got in excess of the united opposition from the previous election. Half a million came from es, but over 1 million came from either existing opposition parties or from new voters. So what actually happened is you’ve basically had an election where it was almost a a two party race, which is not.<\/p>\n Usual in, uh, in a parliamentary system, in a European democracy, usually you have a, you have a bunch of parties and as I was mentioning earlier, only three parties ended up making it into Parliament. So every single party that wasn’t, uh, the super far right, and that was opposed to, um, Orban, they got less than 2% of the total vote.<\/p>\n So what that shows you is that basically everybody who was supposed to Orban got in line behind T-Cell. And even if they didn’t like their conservative views or didn’t particularly like pay that money as a candidate, they said, okay, the first priority is to, is to make sure that this oil bound regime is removed from power.<\/p>\n And so there’s a lesson there about, you know, um, how you approach voting and can you convince people to be strategic voters where. They’re gonna vote for a candidate whom they might not even like very much, but who, who seems to be, you know, better than the alternative, can you unite the opposition around somebody?<\/p>\n And then the last lesson is, is, is maybe about the personality of, um, of Pean Maar himself in the sense of what kind of person can potentially do this, what. Person can potentially unite the opposition like that. And I think one of his strengths was that he was coming from within the EST regime. So he was, he knew exactly how they were going to respond.<\/p>\n Um, so he was always one step ahead of them. Um, but I think what was more important is that he actually wasn’t a high profile politician in EST before this. Had he been, um, really associated with that, with that regime, a lot of people would not have. Uh, would not have been able to hold their noses and vote for him.<\/p>\n He was low enough on the totem pole in es that, that, that people didn’t really hold that against him. And so, um, finding somebody like that or somebody who is, um, outside of politics, so not affiliated with any of the failed opposition parties, but also not affiliated with the current ruling party, um, those kinds of people have a larger, um, ability to, to unite voters around them.<\/p>\n For the simple reason of just getting rid of the, the, the wannabe autocrat. And so that might hold some lessons in terms of where to look for candidates who can do that. It’s probably not going to be in established political parties, but outsiders or celebrities or athletes or, you know, cultural icons or, you know, public intellectuals or somebody who can, um, really claim to be, um, an outsider and who isn’t associated with the, the, the sins of either an autocratic government or an inept opposition.<\/p>\n [00:32:12] Zachary: Wonderful. Well thank you so much for this sort of wonderful summary, but also I think important analysis of the biggest lessons and takeaways from an election that got a lot of attention, but I think has quickly faded, um, from the radar of most. Americans and, and, and policy, uh, wonks around the world. Um, it’ll be interesting to see what happens in the, in the next few months in Hungary.<\/p>\n Um, but certainly the fall of the Orban regime and the victory of the opposition, um, seems to offer, at least as you outlined, a kind of path forward for a lot of other countries with similar politics in, in, in our moment. Um, thank you so much Dr. Redi for joining us today.<\/p>\n [00:32:57] Lorinc Redei: Are. You’re very welcome.<\/p>\n [00:32:58] Zachary: And for Professor Suri as well.<\/p>\n Thank you<\/p>\n [00:33:01] Jeremi: Thank you Zachary, and thank you Lorinc.<\/p>\n [00:33:04] Zachary: And thank you most of all, to our wonderful listeners for joining us for this episode of This is Democracy.<\/p>\n"},"episode_featured_image":false,"episode_player_image":"https:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/this-is-democracy\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/17\/2021\/03\/This-Is-Democracy-Logo-TPN-Update-2021.png","download_link":"https:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/this-is-democracy\/podcast-download\/4021\/this-is-democracy-episode-321-hungarian-elections.mp3","player_link":"https:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/this-is-democracy\/podcast-player\/4021\/this-is-democracy-episode-321-hungarian-elections.mp3","audio_player":"
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