Viktor Orbán’s defeat in Hungary has been described as a victory of democracy over illiberal populism. Péter Magyar’s Tisza party now wields a commanding parliamentary majority, giving it the numbers to pursue constitutional and institutional reform, and to rebuild Hungary as a liberal democracy. It may be tempting to accept this common media framing of the election result. However, it is too early to declare the end of the populist era in Hungary. The notion that Hungary will overnight become a liberal democracy is complicated by Magyar, himself a former member of Orbán’s Fidesz party, using elements of Orbán’s populist playbook against him. Magyar claimed throughout his election campaign that Orbán was a corrupt politician who had forgotten the interests of “the people” while he and other Fidesz leaders “built extravagant mansions and vacationed on yachts”.  

However, there is another reason to be cautious about the supposed transformation of Hungary back into a democracy. Indeed, removing Orbán from power is not the same thing as removing his brand of populism from state institutions. Throughout his 16 years as Prime Minister, Orbán sought increasing control over state institutions, including the courts and civil service. Like other European populists, Orbán complained about the rule of unelected bureaucrats and judges over Hungary. However, after winning a two-thirds parliamentary majority in 2010, his Fidesz government rewrote Hungary’s constitution, began reshaping public institutions by changing cultural and ideological norms, and placed supporters in key positions across the state. Orbán also used state-backed institutions such as the Danube Institute and Mathias Corvinus Collegium to help turn Budapest into a hub for international nationalist-conservative and post-liberal figures, employing or hosting writers and thinkers such as Rod Dreher, Patrick Deneen, Sohrab Ahmari, and Yoram Hazony.

The purpose of this was not only to entrench Fidesz as Hungary’s ruling party, but to turn its state institutions into extensions of the party’s populist-nationalist ideology. The result is a state where bureaucracy is not diminished in size or power, but in its independence from government. There is a somewhat surprising aspect........

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