Hungary:
Orbán’s Defeat

April 20, 2026

This article is translated and excerpted from the April 17 issue, #3011 of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the paper of the Trotskyist group of that name active in France.

Hungarian Prime Minister and strongman Viktor Orbán seemed unshakeable for 16 years. He was the poster child of the European far right. He controlled all the levers of the government and the media. But he suffered a heavy electoral defeat on April 12 and was ousted from power.

This defeat is also Trump’s, who had thrown his full weight behind Orbán by sending his right-hand man J.D. Vance, to support him in the campaign. It’s also a defeat for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who made Orbán one of his closest allies. The election was a defeat for all the proponents of the far right who held Orbán up as a role model, such as Marine Le Pen in France.

Orbán was defeated because millions of working-class voters in big cities and small towns turned out to reject him. But contrary to what many pundits now claim, most workers and small businesspeople did not vote in the name of abstract democratic principles or to strengthen the European Union against Putin and Trump.

No, they rejected Orbán because he plunged them deeper into crisis. In four years, prices rose by 40%. The purchasing power of the working class collapsed. Meanwhile, money gushed into the business world. Corruption scandals erupted as Orbán showered his inner circle with money.…