For a country of ten million people that spent most of the 20th century occupied and impoverished, Hungary today is thriving. This, in the eyes of his supporters, is down to the 16-year rule of Viktor Orban. Hungary’s Prime Minister has, to use his phrasing, aimed to create an ‘illiberal democracy’. He has reformed the country’s judiciary, given tax breaks to mothers to increase the birth rate and zealously resisted the EU’s refugee policies. The last is illustrated by the 140-mile fence along the Serbian border constructed during the 2015 migration crisis. Proud border guards tell you that 1.1 million migrants have been kept out in a decade.

Nevertheless, Orban faces his toughest election yet when Hungarians go to the polls this Sunday. His main rival is Peter Magyar – apt, as Magyar is Hungarian for Hungarian. Once a member of Orban’s Fidesz party, Magyar is the Tony Blair to Orban’s John Major. Just as New Labour offered Tory economics with a fresh face, Magyar offers continuity Orban on immigration alongside pledges to end corruption, repair EU relations and splash the cash.

If Orban loses, the fallout will be messy, with resistance from his allies in the judiciary and civil service

If Orban loses, the fallout will be messy, with resistance from his allies in the judiciary and civil service

Once branded ‘baby Orban’ by Brussels officials, Magyar was married to a former justice minister but he entered politics (post-divorce) in 2024, after a scandal over a pardon for the director of a children’s home linked to abuse. Magyar took over Tisza, a small pro-EU party, and won 30 per cent of the vote in the 2024 EU elections. Today, he has the........

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