Who is Viktor Orban, Hungarian PM fighting to stay in power after 16 years?
Who is Viktor Orban, Hungarian PM fighting to stay in power after 16 years?
Viktor Orban, Hungary’s prime minister, holds the record for the longest tenure among EU leaders. His 16-year rule is under threat in the April 12 elections, with polls indicating a potential loss to Péter Magyar, a former party member. Since 2010, Orban has reshaped Hungary into a hybrid regime, criticized by the European Parliament as an ‘electoral autocracy.’ He appears uncertain how to label his system, having used terms like ‘illiberal democracy’ and ‘Christian liberty.’ His allies in the US Maga movement call it ‘national conservatism.’
Orbán has frequently opposed EU policies on Ukraine, withholding crucial funding from Kyiv as he claims the country seeks to draw Hungary into conflict with Russia. His support extends to Vladimir Putin, making him the EU’s most steadfast ally, and he has received backing from former President Donald Trump for a fifth term. His closest allies within the EU come from the radical and hard right, yet his antagonism towards Brussels persists, still resonating with many Hungarians.
“Orbán and his foreign minister left Europe long ago,” Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk observed.
Orban’s personal charisma has been a key factor in his success, but growing signs indicate that supporters are growing weary of his leadership and the corruption accusations surrounding his party. During a March campaign event in Győr, his usual confidence wavered as he faced boos from the crowd. This was a very different Orbán from the man whose ex-football trainer once highlighted his ability to ‘think on the ball.’
In 2010, he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with firefighters and volunteers, helping contain the toxic red sludge spill that threatened a valley and the Danube’s banks. Now 62, Orban first made his mark while still a law student in Budapest in the late 1980s, as the Soviet Union began to fall apart. He founded a political movement called Fidesz, or Alliance of Young Democrats, with the aim of ending communist rule. ‘If we believe in our own power, we are able to finish the communist dictatorship,’ he declared to an estimated quarter of a million Hungarians during a bold seven-minute speech.
They gathered in Heroes’ Square for the reburial of Imre Nagy, the leader of Hungary’s failed 1956 uprising. Reflecting on his words a decade later, he said he had ‘exposed everyone’s silent desire for free elections, and an independent and democratic Hungary.’ Hungarian-born journalist Paul Lendvai notes that Orban has shifted from being one of Hungary’s most promising defenders of democracy to its chief architect of decline. The country, once a consolidated liberal democracy, now functions as a hybrid regime under his leadership.
Born in 1963 near Budapest, Orban was the eldest of three siblings, with a father who was an agricultural engineer and a Communist Party member, and a mother who taught special needs students. His family home in Felcsut, a village of about 2,000 people, lacked running water, and he still owns a property there. In a 1989 interview, he recalled being beaten twice a year by his father, Gyozo, whom he described as a violent man: ‘When he beat me, he also shouted. I remember all this as a bad experience.’
Before university, he served in the military, where he reportedly rejected an offer from the communist secret services to become an informant. His early life seemed to suggest a path of conformity, but this marked the beginning of his journey to challenge the existing order.