One of Europe’s most formidable political talents, Viktor Orbán, suffered a bruising defeat in Hungary’s parliamentary elections on 12 April. I happened to know him at university.
Talent remains a slippery concept that occupies a broad and ambiguous semantic field. As a young man, Orbán was already a star at university. We studied together at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), and at the exclusive Bibó College he quickly stood out. Though his style of football always struck me as unnecessarily aggressive, he was unmistakably brilliant and bold.
Despite being slightly rapid in his speech, he proved to be an excellent communicator and a natural leader. As an anti-system rebel, he founded the Fidesz party and hesitated only briefly before fully committing to the political career and the historic opportunity that the collapse of communism had rolled towards him.
He progressed at remarkable speed. Amid the awkwardness and fragility of Hungary’s young democracy, he became the youngest prime minister in Europe in 1998 at the age of 35. By then, he had not only shifted his ideological alignment from liberal to conservative but had also accepted the cynical premise that gaining power sometimes requires paying a steep moral price.
After his 2002 defeat, which was inflicted by the Socialists whom he openly despised, Orbán struck his Faustian bargain. For power, he would do anything. The rhetoric of hatred, contempt for institutional checks and balances, disdain for democratic hesitation, and parliamentary cretinism all became acceptable.
The sins of illiberal democracy
Everything was subordinated to the acquisition and retention of power. Terms such as "illiberal democracy" or "hybrid regime" often obscure the true essence and corrosive effect the Orbán regime had on human relationships, on freedom, and the heavy price the public had to pay for its survival.
Seen from this angle, the sins committed by Orbán are indeed grave. This is not meant in an abstract sense but in very concrete and everyday terms. Countless lives were bent out of shape by his policies. Some citizens left the country because there was no space left for them to breathe or work. Others stayed and slowly gave up.
Entire life trajectories were broken. Sometimes they snapped with a painful crack while others faded in silent resignation. Careers never began, research was never completed, and films were never made. Teachers learned it was safer to remain silent. Doctors now heal abroad because they could not do so at home.
Perhaps the greatest loss, however, was belief. This was the belief among citizens that their country could be a place where talent and hard work would allow them to get ahead. Instead, loyalty or more accurately servility became the sole foundation of the system.
Those outside Orbán’s inner circle were simply pushed aside. Negative selection became the rule of the day. This was accompanied by the systematic elimination of opportunities for those excluded, alongside the quiet contempt and dismissal of the ruling elite.
Following the recent election, Fidesz cynically pointed to the victory of the Tisza party as proof that the system remains democratic. While it is true they did not have its leader, Péter Magyar, shot like the Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, avoiding assassination is a remarkably narrow definition of democracy.
Instead, in an effort to maintain control, Orbán resorted to methods alien to European norms. These included the use of secret services against opponents, surveillance, humiliation, corruption, and the deployment of state institutions in partisan competition. The apparatus struck at anyone who raised their voice.
Too close to the sun
After 2018, having consolidated his domestic system, Hungary became too small for Orbán. He began to see himself as a geopolitical actor. Like Icarus, he rose higher and higher, but this brought two distinct problems. First, he lost touch with Hungarian reality because his once legendary instinct for the public mood faded. Second, he miscalculated in foreign policy.
The strategy of ‘connectivity’, opening in all directions, might have functioned in peacetime but in wartime it amounted to a betrayal of his allies. Orbán became a pariah within the European Union and a useful tool for those, from Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin, interested in a weakened Europe.
What the future holds for Orbán is impossible to say with certainty. His role models, Silvio Berlusconi and Benjamin Netanyahu, may suggest the possibility of an eternal return to the spotlight. Péter Magyar has partly foreclosed this by proposing to limit prime ministerial terms to two. Extraordinary times frequently demand such extraordinary responses.
If we understand the character of Orbán, one thing seems likely: he will fight. Amid all the current uncertainty, he will almost certainly attend the football World Cup this summer as a VIP of the U.S. President, and in the autumn relaunch his rearguard battle under the banner of defending democracy.
But there is another possibility. He might recognise that, at this stage of life, there is only one truly difficult task for a Hungarian man: to grow old with dignity. That, however, requires facing what has happened.
There is no shortcut: without repentance and atonement, there can be no closure. Whether this takes place within the walls of a castle built from stolen money or in a prison cell, in a spiritual sense it should make no difference to him. For the nation, however, it makes all the difference.
This op-ed was first published in German by Der Tagesspiegel, Berlin, on 22 April.
