Hungary has witnessed a dramatic political transformation as Péter Magyar and his Tisza party secured a decisive victory in last Sunday's election, ending Viktor Orbán's 16-year rule. The party captured 52% of the vote, translating to 141 seats in the 199-seat National Assembly, while Orbán's Fidesz party plummeted from 135 to just 52 seats.
Magyar has already secured a commitment from President Tamás Sulyok to accelerate the formation of the new parliament to begin the week of May 4. The incoming prime minister wasted no time delivering combative interviews to public service media outlets that had largely ignored or attacked him over the past two years.
"My message to Fidesz leaders and their stooges: It's no use playing the innocent little ballet girl now, and acting as if nothing happened," Magyar posted on Facebook. "We know what you've done to our beloved homeland and the Hungarian people. And don't doubt for a single moment that 'you will reap what you sow'."
Armed with a super-majority of more than two-thirds of parliamentary seats, Magyar's government plans to implement retroactive term limits for prime ministers—restricting them to two terms. This measure would effectively bar Orbán, who has served five terms, from returning to power.
Orbán broke his silence late Thursday in an interview on the Patrióta YouTube channel, acknowledging the end of an era.
"This is the end of an era," the defeated leader stated. "We must bear this defeat with dignity."
He expressed "pain and emptiness" about the loss and took personal responsibility, though he offered limited analysis of campaign missteps beyond citing delays in a Russian-designed nuclear power project.
Within Fidesz, a mood of fear and recrimination prevails. The party faces internal debates about leadership renewal, with Orbán indicating he would continue leading if re-elected but acknowledging the need for "a complete renewal." No obvious successor possesses his skill at integrating diverse opinions within the party.
Across Budapest, visual evidence of the political shift is unmistakable. Nearly every Fidesz campaign poster has been defaced, many bearing the spray-painted word "Vége" (The End) or expletives.
The incoming Tisza government faces immediate challenges, including preventing capital flight to destinations like Dubai favored by Hungarian oligarchs and securing evidence of potential corruption before it can be destroyed. Tisza insiders report that some officials are offering digital copies of documents in exchange for job security or immunity.
Magyar's team also plans to suspend news programs on public service media until impartial editors can be appointed, responding to what they describe as a years-long campaign of demonization by government-controlled media outlets.
With opinion polls consistently predicting an opposition victory in the week before the election, Tisza claims dozens of last-minute contracts were signed with favored companies, committing the state to future IT, research, and construction projects—complications the new government must now address as it prepares to take office.