Inertia, youth disquiet, and stormy office politics could be the death of Fidesz in government
Hungary, under Viktor Orbán, has marketed itself as a kind of right-wing Cuba.
A hub of post-liberal politics for export, arguably the Trump administration’s chief contact point with the European Right and a fly in the ointment against EU busybodies over Ukraine, immigration, and federalisation, Fidesz is very much the party that populists aspire to become.
With an unmatched level of institutional control through entities such as the private institute Mathias Corvinus Collegium MCC and appealing rhetoric on pro-natalism and national sovereignty, Budapest is the city for the international right, even sporting state-funded Scruton cafes.
Orbán has played hardball against Brussels and has so far had the better of the match. If a diplomatic settlement in Ukraine occurs, the Hungarian government is poised to reap a mighty peace dividend.
As well as keeping open economic channels with the Kremlin, Orbán is hedging against the rules-based order and even Trumpism with overtures to Beijing as Hungary positions itself to become the primary European producer of Chinese EV batteries.
Despite the defeat of Polish conservatives in 2023, Hungary is less and less of a European outlier, courtesy of Fico in Slovakia, Meloni and Wilders in the West, and the high probability of an eventual FPÖ-run Austria and Andrej Babiš returning to power in Prague.
Fidesz now heads up an internationale of the European Right, thanks to its Patriots for Europe umbrella group as populists, and even the American GOP fly in and out of Budapest hoping to mimic the Orbanist model.
Outwardly, for any non-Hungarian outsider, it looks like a stable ship — even going a long way to set the tone for future national populists when in power.
The problem, however, is that the Fidesz ship is sinking, and very few in the European right have dared notice.
The growing strength of a viable centre-right-led opposition, Tisza, led by ex-Fidesz insider Péter Magyar, has opened the floodgates to public dissatisfaction with the government, with dirty laundry aired by disgruntled colleagues doing much to dent the Orbanist political machine.
While right-wing outsiders view Hungary as a paradigm, the reality is that it is something closer to a captured clientist state, with a flabby network of Fidesz cronies pocketing EU and state funds.
The Brussels-backed opposition never had a hope in the 2010s while under the direction of post-communist left radicals but now has a convincing lead under Magyar the past year, even if Fidesz-backed polling companies attempt to spin a parallel reality.
The downfall of Fidesz President Katalin Novák, and repeated media exposés on nepotism within the Central European country, are chipping away at Fidesz’s street cred as many quietly fear further scandals as jilted one-time insiders throw in their lot with Magyar.
Even the much lauded Chinese battery plans are increasingly seen as another looting operation for those with Fidesz connections, potentially even setting the stage for conflict with a hawkish Trump administration.
While Hungary prides itself on its pro-natalist policies, the birth rate is the effective equivalent of Germany’s, with youth emigration and a bulge of Soviet-era retirees presenting Budapest with a formidable fiscal cliff.
If anything, the pro-natalist incentives have resulted in a surge of subsidised Roma gypsy births as Hungary experiences a jump in non-European and Balkan migration to plug labour shortages. Fidesz is itself reliant on the Roma vote, with officials privately recounting with subdued frustration the party tactic of winning over gypsies with free bags of potatoes to complement the party’s network of domestic clientism.
Orbán now has 12 months before parliamentary elections in April next year to fend off Magyar with Hungary’s mixed electoral system, potentially forcing Fidesz into a coalition with the hard right identitarian Mi Hazánk party.
Judged by many as barely reformed skinheads emerging out of the ashes of the Jobbik party (now co-opted by progressive reformers), Mi Hazánk, to most, has a long way to go before it becomes a viable alternative to Fidesz.
In Budapest, Fidesz luminaries speak privately of their professional exit plans in the event of a Magyar takeover. Both Brussels and the remnants of the Soros and USAID networks are keen to bury Orbanism for good with an institutional purge should the chance arise.
Once out of power, Brussels is very clear that it will never allow Orbanism to return by salting the earth. That means EU-sponsored suppression of the Polish Right for Hungary, but on steroids.
Poland has seen this movie before
If and when the money stops flowing in 2026, Fidesz will have to streamline its vast machine. If the party is cut off from the state coffers despite its many foundations, morale will likely break down. The situation is complicated by the lack of a clear successor to the 61-year-old Orbán, which could lead to an internecine power struggle in the wake of defeat.
Poland has seen this movie before, with mass firings and even jailings of Law and Justice-connected officials and a very public blacklisting of many connected to the once strong conservative government in Warsaw since Tusk took power.
While Polish conservatives rush to human rights forums and even the U.S to broadcast their grievances against Tusk’s persecution, the quiet reality is that young Poles, on both sides of the spectrum, are enjoying seeing former bigwigs, widely viewed as corrupt, being dragged over the judicial coals.
Considering the headache Orbán has been at the EU Council, Brussels will greenlight the very public suppression of Fidesz patronage networks and the funding of a prospective Magyar administration, similar to €137 billion granted to Musk after deposing the obstructionist right in Warsaw.
The potential vanquishing of Fidesz will leave a major funding gap for the European Right, with even a relatively stable Meloni unable to match Hungarian cash and strategy.
The downfall of Orbán could also be followed by a strategically adept centre-right government under Magyar, keeping up the rhetoric on migration, Ukraine, and even EU centralisation as he twists the knife against the right. Again, akin to Tusk in Poland.
Even if Fidesz dodges the electoral bullet next year, the country faces weeks, if not months, of public protests disrupting the results, akin to scenes already witnessed in Georgia, Slovakia, and Serbia of late.
Fidesz privately hopes that Magyar’s boorish reputation and the funding cuts to USAID will see Orbán over the line in 2026, but all the same, the Magyar opposition still packs a punch and stands to win if polling is to be believed.
While conservative functionaries the world over fly in and out of Budapest to receive a rose-tinted view of the Fidesz empire, the reality is of a party about to be overthrown by an organic albeit Brussels-backed opposition fuelled by resentment at petty corruption.
Rule of law is not just a phrase bandied about by Eurocrats but a prerequisite for good governance, especially in the post-Soviet realm. Hungary was indeed targeted by the EU on the issue, but progressive NGOs are pushing an open door when it comes to the corruption question.
Hungary is not a conservative utopia in the making but a flawed post-Soviet democracy
Under the trunk and away from the ideological rhetoric, Orbanism is a dangerous geopolitical game, offering Hungary up to authoritarian non-European regimes as a fifth column and investment opportunity against the EU, all the while staying just about enough in the orbit of Brussels to benefit from subsidies.
Hungary is not a conservative utopia in the making but a flawed post-Soviet democracy with a millennial and Zoomer cohort more aggrieved at the corruption of their local Fidesz official than the latest culture war issue the governing party wishes to weaponise.
What is more, Fidesz-style corruption could be the sign of things to come as various populist and genuinely oligarchic factions come to power in Eastern Europe. “These crooks are just oligarchs with a rebrand,” remarked one conservative friend of mine attending a summit of largely Eastern European politicos as he argued that entrenched business interests in their respective nations used populist rhetoric to fight off Brussels oversight.
Anglophone readers are unable to appreciate the normalised level of corruption in the former Warsaw Pact countries with these local rackets, the thing that truly invites liberalisation.
Corruption is the Achilles’ heel of conservative governments anywhere but especially east of the Iron Curtain with a well-oiled industry of NGOs specialising in exploiting it for a very good reason.
Voters in Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland, and elsewhere will opt for Western liberalism regardless of its long-term effects if the only alternative is between it and unscrupulous local chieftains aiming to fleece their society and wall them off from EU norms.
Clientism is party and parcel of politics the world over; nevertheless, these domestic cliques are paradoxically setting in motion further liberalisation in Eastern Europe due to their endemic nepotism, which drives youth populations into the hands of Brussels and progressivism due to the wish to attain good governance.
Edmund Burke, in his era, understood the moral importance of a conservative from the British establishment reprimanding the carpetbagging of India under the auspices of the East Indian trading company before revolutionary subversion was able to get its talons into the Subcontinent.
So, for us, an anti-oligarchal right must be ready and waiting to chart a sustainable post-liberal future and not be reliant on shifty patronage networks. The warning is simple for Fidesz and could apply to the Trumpist Right’s new friendship with Silicon Valley.
Smash the oligarchs before they smash you.
