PROFILE: Orbán, the divisive conservative radical who has refashioned European politics

Hungary’s controversial leader has not only rewritten the script for his own country but has transformed European politics, emerging as the forebear of a nationalist, often popular, conservative backlash against the liberal postwar order.

This weekend’s election in Hungary will be more than a verdict on Orbán as an individual, although his personal flaws loom large. Above all, it will be a historic event with significance far beyond the small Central European country’s borders, stretching from the White House to the Kremlin.

Just days before the vote, his future hangs in the balance in a campaign dominated by claims of dirty tricks, alleged foreign interference – from Brussels to Moscow, Kyiv and Washington – as well as corruption.

A mark of his importance is Donald Trump’s full-throated support for his re-election. The US president, backed by Orbán even before his first term in office, has cast him and “patriotic European parties” as a civilisational bulwark for Europe.

A defeat for Orbán would be a political setback for Trump, who needs his success almost as much as the Hungarian leader relies on US endorsement to show he and Hungary are not isolated.

‘End of the end of history’ – the great betrayer?

As a young dissident, Orbán, 62, played a leading role in Hungary during the fall of the Soviet Union, his star rising in what American political theorist Francis Fukuyama dubbed “The End of History.”

He has come to personify what might be called “the end of the end of history,” advancing alternatives to an EU and global order he argues is indifferent or hostile to the values, often conservative and rooted in tradition, of many European societies.

Orbán often says that “our best friend and ally is reality,” pointing to popular support for his agenda, from curbing irregular migration to defending traditional family structures, in contrast to centrist parties he argues have become estranged from voters.

One senior figure in Fidesz, the party Orbán co-founded, sees this as his political advantage. Many Hungarians, even those who dislike him, rally to his side when he is criticised by European leaders such as French President Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Angela Merkel or European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Yet one former European leader and senior EU figure, who has had many encounters with the Hungarian prime minister at heated summits, cautions against casting him as a scapegoat for Europe’s broader malaise. Blaming Orbán, he argues, is an evasion of responsibility by leaders unwilling to confront their own failures, and by a European Commission that has stretched its mandate.

The same figure notes that Orbán is always courteous and respectful in his exchanges, even with his critics and rivals. Unusually, the former prime minister said, for a European leader he is also an intellectual fascinated by history and geopolitics and hands out book recommendations at EU summits.

It is his gravitas and background – as an anti-Communist dissident once celebrated by liberals – that fuels the sense of betrayal among critics, given his willingness to challenge institutional norms such as judicial independence and central bank autonomy, as well as the progressive Western consensus on immigration and social policy.

A turn to Russia

The young Viktor showed early promise as a student dissident, boldly calling for elections and the withdrawal of Russian troops before emerging, with his Fidesz movement, as the new Hungarian face of free Europe.

His path to the top was bumpy. After victory in 1998 and defeat in 2002 at the hands of Ferenc Gyurcsány, a former Communist turned mainstream European Socialist, Orbán adopted a more radical approach, discarding the nostrums of conventional ‘end of history’ politics.

Most remarkable in his self-fashioned political journey was his shift from Hungary’s traditional hostility towards Russia, shaped by Communism, the 1956 uprising and Soviet occupation, to a new accord with President Vladimir Putin.

That shift, which emerged around 2009 and has never been fully explained ideologically but is widely linked to energy dependence, has become a central issue in the current election. Leaked transcripts point to an unusually close, even deferential, relationship between Orbán’s government and Moscow.

Putin, openly nostalgic for the reach of the former Soviet Union and its influence over countries like Hungary, addresses Orbán using the informal Russian “ty,” akin to a first-name basis, rather than the more formal “vy”.

Graffiti bearing the 1956 slogan “Ruszkik haza!” – Russians go home – has reappeared on walls, and opposition supporters have echoed it at Fidesz rallies. Orbán’s relationship with Putin, described as treasonous by opposition leader Péter Magyar, who might well win this weekend, has become a defining campaign issue, particularly as the Hungarian leader has intensified his rhetoric against neighbouring Ukraine following Russia’s 2022 invasion. In recent months, Kyiv has supplanted Brussels, and the EU, as his whipping boy.

Others play this down. One former European leader noted that, in private, Orbán is clear-eyed about the security threat Russia poses to both Hungary and Europe.

Still, turning to Russia might now be a weakness for Orbán, intersecting with fatigue after 16 years in power and a shrinking inner circle – particularly following a 2024 pardon in a paedophilia case that forced out Hungary’s President, Katalin Novák, and former Justice Minister Judit Varga, who had just been appointed to lead his EU election campaign.

Varga, once a leading Fidesz figure, is the former wife of Magyar, who was propelled into opposition in the wake of the scandal. The ex-husband, forged in the crucible of Fidesz’s decline, is now Orbán’s most serious challenger since 2010.

“Does his daughter have to become a billionaire?”

One veteran Hungarian conservative, who has known Orbán since their days as dissidents in the 1980s, believes he has lost touch as power has consolidated and his inner circle has narrowed. “He has gone crazy,” he said. “How on earth he thinks institutionalising corruption is good strategy, I have no idea.”

The rise of oligarchs and businessmen close to Orbán has been a defining feature of the past decade and is increasingly visible.

Emblems of this new economic order, despite efforts to keep energy and food prices low and wages high, are the country’s newly wealthy elite.

Among them is Lőrinc Mészáros, a childhood friend and former village mayor, who has become Hungary’s richest man, once joking that he owed his success to “God, good luck, and Viktor Orbán.”

Another is his son-in-law, István Tiborcz, married to Orbán’s eldest daughter, Ráhel, whose business dealings – including public contracts and EU-funded projects – have become emblematic for critics of alleged cronyism.

“Does his daughter really have to become a billionaire in order to save Hungary?” the veteran conservative asked, a question that is often echoed by others.

In the past, Orbán’s personal popularity has often exceeded that of his party or inner circle. Despite everything, he retains a reputation for accessibility and ease in conversation, particularly on football and politics. “His strength is his chameleon-like quality,” said one observer. “He can find common ground with anyone and pitch his ideas at exactly the right level.”

His greatest obstacle in the days ahead may not be the opprobrium of Europe’s leaders, but simply that after 16 years in power, many Hungarians may want change.

(mk, cz)