Democratic leaders across Europe and the United States welcomed the result as a stunning rebuke against rising authoritarianism. The coming months now offer Hungary a rare opportunity to translate that victory into lasting reform.
Hungary now has an opening to complete a democratic transition. Although Orbán is no longer prime minister, the public institutions, political networks, and economic interests that sustained his rule remain largely intact. After the election, loyalists still occupy positions of influence; patronage networks continue to shape public life; and years of political pressure have weakened oversight bodies, distorted the media, and blurred the line between the governing party and the state.
Newly elected Prime Minister Péter Magyar gave those frustrations a direct political language. On the campaign trail, he described corruption as theft from Hungarian citizens and set the reported enrichment of Orbán’s political friends against the background of deteriorating hospitals, struggling schools, and declining living standards.
Tisza’s roughly 240-page manifesto promises extensive reform, while its parliamentary supermajority gives the new government unusual freedom to act. That freedom offers Hungary its greatest opportunity—but also poses its central danger. Tisza, Magyar’s new center-right political party, has a powerful mandate to dismantle Orbán’s corrupt system. But unless it constrains its own power, it risks rebuilding that system around a new party and a new leader.
The future of Hungarian democracy will therefore depend on the character of the institutions that Tisza and Magyar create. Those institutions must remain transparent, pluralistic, and ultimately strong enough to constrain future governments.
The state Orbán left behind
Orbán did not leave behind a neutral state awaiting new leadership. During 16 years in power, his Fidesz party placed loyalists in the presidency, the Constitutional Court, the chief prosecutor’s office, the security services, the foreign ministry, and the civil administration. These appointments turned independent institutions into direct instruments of Orbán’s rule and into future barriers for successor governments. Tisza will have to rebuild them one by one.
First, the new government must distinguish among officials who actively enabled abuses, those who accommodated the system to preserve their careers, and professional civil servants ready to enact the new agenda. That task will require judgment rather than sweeping purges. If the new government moves too slowly, entrenched networks may obstruct reform, conceal wrongdoing, protect illicit assets, or preserve influence until Fidesz can regroup. Yet if the party clears institutions too aggressively, it may strip the state of expertise, deepen political control over the civil service, and repeat the methods that allowed Fidesz to entrench itself.
Recent constitutional changes reveal a similar tension. The newly enacted 17th Amendment ended President Tamás Sulyok’s term, restored a retirement age of 70 for Constitutional Court judges, and imposed a lifetime ceiling of 12 years for members of Parliament. Because the amendment retroactively counts service completed before its adoption, it will prevent many of Fidesz’s longest-serving lawmakers from standing at the next election, including barring Orbán himself.
Supporters see these measures as necessary steps toward freeing the state from Fidesz control and removing the latent veto points Orbán planted to stymie reforms. Even so, retroactive changes demand exceptional care. Rules that appear tailored to a single political party can weaken public confidence in the system as a whole.
Several interlocutors in Budapest noted how quickly Fidesz’s once-formidable cadre of loyalists seems to have disintegrated. The party bloc now holds slightly more than one-quarter of the seats in Parliament, while recent polling places it far behind Tisza and only modestly ahead of the far-right Our Homeland Movement. Fidesz’s rapid collapse weakens the case for constitutional measures designed to exclude its leaders and strengthens the case for neutral rules that constrain actors equally. Codifying a two-term limit for the prime minister would move Hungary in that direction and give Magyar an early opportunity to demonstrate that he accepts constraints on his own power.
The Constitutional Court poses an equally delicate problem. Fidesz spent years bending the court toward its political interests, packing it with loyalists while changing appointment rules and narrowing its jurisdiction. Newly enacted reforms under the 17th Amendment shortened judicial terms from 12 years to nine, reinstated a retirement age, and returned the selection of the court’s president to the judges themselves. These are important democratic correctives. Yet Parliament will still choose new justices under the existing appointment system. Tisza should introduce transparent, merit-based nominations to avoid future politicization.
Accountability and restraint
Magyar built his campaign around a clear indictment of Orbán-era corruption. The public now expects investigations, prosecutions, recovered assets, and visible proof that political change will bring criminal accountability. On July 10, Hungary announced its intention to join the European Public Prosecutor’s Office. Membership in the Luxembourg-based body would allow an independent European institution to investigate fraud involving EU funds.
Closer to home, Tisza has also sought to strengthen the Hungarian Integrity Authority—a domestic anticorruption body. Under Orbán, the authority struggled to investigate powerful political figures and faced pressure when its work threatened key government allies. Since April’s election, it has announced plans to expand its powers and unveiled a new set of tools to help the government track down missing public funds. These steps are encouraging, but they still depend on institutions whose independence was previously compromised—a concern underscored by serious, albeit potentially politicized, allegations of misconduct against the leadership of the Integrity Authority itself.
The centerpiece of the government’s anticorruption agenda is the newly established National Asset Recovery and Protection Office. The new authority aims to trace public wealth transferred into private hands, better coordinate discrete investigations, and return recovered assets to the public. While existing bodies carry the legacy of state capture, the new authority can bring urgency to the effort and send a clear political signal.
Yet the credibility of the anticorruption drive will turn not only on how the government builds new institutions but also on how it uses the coercive powers of the state. Recent episodes show how quickly enforcement actions can appear politically motivated. In recent weeks, prosecutors and national tax authority investigators raided a Fidesz party data center as part of a broader embezzlement investigation. Separately, police detained a conservative social media influencer on a terrorism charge that was later dismissed. On both occasions, investigators may have had legitimate grounds to act, but poorly explained raids and sweeping national security charges risk undermining confidence in the entire reform effort.
Prosecutors should explain politically sensitive charges whenever the law permits, judges should review intrusive measures, and authorities should reserve terrorism and national security powers for cases that genuinely warrant them. Accountability will strengthen democracy only when citizens can distinguish justice from retaliation.
Delivering in everyday life
Constitutional reform will mean little if daily life continues to deteriorate. Tisza inherited high inflation, a large deficit, weakened health services, neglected infrastructure, and expectations that no government can easily satisfy. Hungarians voted for a state that works. They want functioning hospitals, stronger schools, and responsible stewardship of public money. Before Tisza can deliver any of those things, however, it will have to confront the many veto points Fidesz left behind. And even if it succeeds, institutional reform will only clear the way for the more difficult task of governing. The harder phase now begins as Tisza turns from dismantling Orbán’s system to confronting Hungary’s challenging fiscal reality.
Hungary urgently needs public investment, and the unlocking of EU funding gives Tisza much-needed breathing room. Budapest recently “unlocked” approximately 16.4 billion euros that the European Union had frozen over rule-of-law, anticorruption, and fundamental rights concerns. This includes 10 billion euros from the COVID-era Recovery and Resilience Facility, 4.2 billion euros in economic development funding, and a further 2.2 billion euros linked to reforms restoring academic freedom. Together, these resources equal roughly 14 percent of Hungary’s gross domestic product.
The money offers Hungary a lifeline and Tisza an early political test. Responsible investment could restore public trust and show that democratic reform can improve ordinary lives, but the sudden infusion of public spending risks reviving the opaque arrangements that allowed patronage to flourish under Fidesz in the first place. The new government should publish the names of contractors, project recipients, and public officials who have potential conflicts of interest.
The creation of a searchable database would allow citizens, journalists, and watchdog groups to trace European funds from allocation to final recipient, building on the work of civil society organizations such as K-Monitor, which tracked corruption and public spending during the Orbán years.
Tisza has also raised the prospect of joining the eurozone. Hungary should treat euro adoption as a long-term anchor for economic and political integration but also as a much-needed bulwark against state corruption. A credible path toward eurozone membership, beginning with the fiscal reforms required to enter the European exchange rate mechanism, would limit toxic patronage networks, bind Hungary more closely to Europe, and spur additional international investment.
A political system worth keeping
The final test of Hungary’s democratic renewal will lie in how Tisza treats its critics. Magyar now commands a supermajority, dominates the political landscape, and faces few organized rivals. Parliament contains no representatives from liberal or center-left parties, many of which stepped aside before the election to consolidate the opposition vote. This dominance gives Magyar room to reform the state, but it also removes many of the pressures that compel elected leaders to compromise, explain their decisions, and tolerate dissent.
Hungary will remain vulnerable if one dominant party simply gives way to another. To that end, Tisza has proposed electoral reform, but it has offered few details. Since 2010, every Hungarian government except during the 2014–2018 term has commanded a parliamentary supermajority, while cardinal laws remain too easy for governing majorities to amend. Fidesz exploited those rules to convert temporary political advantage into lasting institutional dominance. Tisza should strengthen minority-party rights, establish an independent process for reviewing districts, and make it harder for parliamentary supermajorities to rewrite the constitution. Over time, Hungary should consider adopting a more proportional electoral system that makes such overwhelming majorities less likely.
Civil society deserves equal protection. The 2026 Pride march carried significance far beyond LGBTQ+ rights. After Orbán’s failed attempt to ban the previous year’s event, tens of thousands of people returned to Budapest’s streets under a new government that allowed the march to proceed freely. That change in official posture marked an encouraging departure, especially after a Tisza campaign that largely steered clear of divisive social and cultural questions. Magyar did not attend the march and has remained “cautious” about broader reforms to LGBTQ law. Tisza should now translate the more open political climate into durable protections.
Public media offers another early test. On July 7, Hungary’s public broadcaster halted its regularly scheduled programming and replaced it with an onscreen apology for years of political distortion that misled viewers. The new leadership has also begun a broader restructuring intended to restore editorial independence. The apology marked an encouraging, if symbolic, break with the past. The harder test will come once the political honeymoon fades and journalists subject Tisza and Magyar to sustained scrutiny.
Several warning signs deserve close attention in the months and years ahead. Authority may grow increasingly personalized around Magyar. Tisza may resist internal debate. Prosecutors and security agencies may begin serving political interests. A democratic government proves its character through the space it leaves for rivals.
The road ahead
The European Union, a future U.S. administration, and the wider transatlantic community should support Hungary’s renewal while holding its new leaders to clear democratic standards.
The Trump administration openly put its weight behind Orbán during the April election. U.S. Vice President JD Vance appeared at a Fidesz rally days before the vote, where he praised Orbán and brought U.S. President Donald Trump into the event by phone. That remarkable intervention should sharpen minds in Brussels about Europe’s particular responsibility to support Hungary through the difficult transition in the months ahead and about Washington’s role as the new purveyor of an illiberal international order.
Support, however, should be tempered with pragmatism—and European institutions should avoid making democratic repair more difficult. Poland offers a cautionary tale. After Prime Minister Donald Tusk took office, the European Commission quickly restored Poland’s access to funds withheld under the far-right PiS government, even though the hardest judicial reforms remained unresolved. The Venice Commission, the Council of Europe’s advisory body on constitutional law, later objected to parts of Warsaw’s reform plan, including efforts to reverse politicized judicial appointments. Those external constraints interacted with domestic ones, as PiS-backed presidents also blocked key elements of the government’s reform agenda. Poland’s experience shows the danger of leaving democratic repair trapped between domestic veto players and opaque European legal standards governing how that repair can proceed.
In Hungary, the European Union should continue to uphold strict rule-of-law standards while helping a new government design reforms that can survive legal scrutiny and dismantle authoritarian capture. Early political and financial support can strengthen reforms, but the European Union must not become an obstacle to democratic repair.
Three key priorities should guide the international response:
- Make every euro traceable. The European Commission should require the Hungarian government to publish complete, machine-readable records identifying all beneficiaries, contractors, subcontractors, conflicts of interest, procurement decisions, and audit findings tied to EU funds. The European Court of Auditors, investigative journalists, and Hungarian civil society watchdogs should receive access to the same underlying data.
Under Orbán, entrenched patronage networks repeatedly exploited EU funding and public procurement. The commission should therefore apply enhanced scrutiny to each new tranche of funding and verify that Budapest spends it lawfully, transparently, and competitively before releasing additional funds.
- Rebuild a robust U.S. democracy-assistance presence. A future U.S. administration should renew support for Hungarian civil society, independent media, universities, municipalities, and public-interest watchdogs. American democracy assistance should complement European funding by emphasizing the civic foundations of democratic life. This could include civic education, professional and academic exchanges, journalism, institutional partnerships, and long-term relationship building with emerging leaders.
European assistance often provides essential legal, regulatory, and technical expertise, but technocratic reform alone cannot rebuild democratic culture or secure public trust. The United States should once again support a broad civic and democratic project.
- Scrutinize U.S. State Department grants. Congress should require full disclosure of the applicants, recipients, subgrantees, and selection criteria connected to the State Department’s nearly $5 million grant program for European organizations. The fund could offer a lifeline to the Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) after Tisza vowed to cut off its access to Hungarian public money. The MCC helped carry Orbán’s illiberal project far beyond Hungary and built ties among nationalist movements across Europe and the American right. Congress should prevent U.S. funds from replacing Orbán-era patronage and require regular public reporting for every award.
Conclusion
Hungary’s experience carries lessons well beyond Central Europe. Elections can remove authoritarian leaders while leaving much of their system intact: Loyal officials remain in place, patronage networks endure, and distorted media environments continue to shape political debate.
Reformers face temptations of their own. They may begin to treat legal restraints as obstacles, critics as enemies, and concentrated power as a necessary instrument of democratic repair. Orbán himself first entered the prime minister’s office in 1998 as a liberal reformer.
Hungary now has a rare chance to break that cycle. Tisza can root out corruption, rebuild services, restore the country’s European ties, and create institutions that resist future authoritarian drift. Hungary needs a government that fully accepts political pluralism and the healthy competition that comes with genuine liberal democracy.
The true measure of democratic renewal will emerge after the excitement of Orbán’s defeat has long faded. Tisza will succeed if it builds a political system that no leader, including Péter Magyar, can capture again.