Viktor Orbán’s 15-Year Reign Under Threat as Former Ally Leads in Polls

Vik­tor Orbán faces his most for­mi­da­ble polit­i­cal chal­lenge in years as for­mer Fidesz par­ty defec­tor Péter Mag­yar’s pro-West­ern Tisza move­ment leads in polls ahead of Hun­gary’s April elec­tions. On 24 Sep­tem­ber 2025, The Guardian report­ed that for the first time in 15 years, a cred­i­ble chal­lenger has emerged who could poten­tial­ly defeat the long-dom­i­nant Hun­gar­i­an prime min­is­ter, with impli­ca­tions extend­ing far beyond Hun­gary to Euro­pean democ­ra­cy and the future of pop­ulist move­ments world­wide. The arti­cle begins:

Vik­tor Orbán, Hun­gary’s long-dom­i­nant prime min­is­ter, whose grip on pow­er is show­ing signs of strain. For 15 years, Vik­tor Orbán’s elec­toral vic­to­ries have been a fore­gone con­clu­sion. But a cred­i­ble polit­i­cal chal­lenger to Orbán has appeared. Péter Mag­yar is no mes­si­ah: in fact, he is a defec­tor from the rul­ing Fidesz par­ty. But polls show Mag­yar and his new-ish pro-west­ern Tisza move­ment are on course to defeat Orbán in April elec­tions. Such an out­come would not just be a big deal for Hun­gar­i­ans. After years of Orbán’s obstruc­tion­ism with­in the EU, its future, and that of Euro­pean democ­ra­cy more broad­ly, is also at stake.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/24/orban-faces-toughest-challenge-in-years-but-can-hungarys-strongman-be-unseated

Key Points

• Péter Mag­yar’s Tisza move­ment leads polls despite his back­ground as a for­mer Fidesz par­ty insider.
• Orbán’s mod­el of “infor­ma­tion­al autoc­ra­cy” pro­vid­ed a blue­print for Trump’s assault on Amer­i­can demo­c­ra­t­ic institutions.
• Eco­nom­ic woes and “Orbán fatigue” weak­en the prime min­is­ter’s pre­vi­ous­ly unshake­able rur­al vot­er base.
• Oppo­si­tion par­ties unite behind Mag­yar by not con­test­ing the elec­tion to max­i­mize chances of unseat­ing Orbán.

Hungary’s Viktor Orban Leads Global National Conservative Alliance Against Liberal Democracy

Hun­gary has emerged as the hub of a grow­ing net­work of nation­al­ists and con­ser­v­a­tives under Vik­tor Orban’s lead­er­ship, serv­ing as the cen­tral plat­form for the Glob­al Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Alliance (GNCA). Orban has sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly con­struct­ed transat­lantic far-right net­works through host­ing annu­al CPAC events in Budapest, bring­ing togeth­er Euro­pean far-right lead­ers with Amer­i­can con­ser­v­a­tives who reject tra­di­tion­al Rea­gan-era philoso­phies in favor of nation­al sov­er­eign­ty and cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty messaging.

The Hun­gar­i­an Prime Min­is­ter has posi­tioned him­self as the ide­o­log­i­cal archi­tect of illib­er­al democ­ra­cy, deliv­er­ing keynote address­es where he likens lib­er­al­ism to a “virus” and pro­motes Hun­gary’s mod­el as a suc­cess­ful alter­na­tive to the West­ern lib­er­al order. Through gov­ern­ment-fund­ed orga­ni­za­tions like the Cen­ter for Fun­da­men­tal Rights, Orban has estab­lished insti­tu­tion­al infra­struc­ture to coor­di­nate inter­na­tion­al con­ser­v­a­tive move­ments, host­ing promi­nent fig­ures such as Tuck­er Carl­son, Steve Ban­non, and mul­ti­ple Euro­pean far-right par­ty lead­ers who express admi­ra­tion for Hun­gary’s poli­cies on immi­gra­tion, LGBTQ+ rights, and media control.

This alliance oper­ates on shared hos­til­i­ty to glob­al­ism, mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism, and what mem­bers char­ac­ter­ize as pro­gres­sive dom­i­nance, with Orban call­ing for con­ser­v­a­tives to “take back insti­tu­tions in Wash­ing­ton and Brus­sels” and coor­di­nate move­ment strate­gies across bor­ders. His influ­ence extends beyond sym­bol­ic lead­er­ship, as Hun­gary has imple­ment­ed sov­er­eign­ty pro­tec­tion mea­sures tar­get­ing for­eign-fund­ed NGOs and estab­lished gov­ern­men­tal mech­a­nisms to inves­ti­gate what Hun­gar­i­an offi­cials char­ac­ter­ize as elec­toral inter­fer­ence by U.S.-funded democ­ra­cy orga­ni­za­tions, cre­at­ing a tem­plate for chal­leng­ing inter­na­tion­al demo­c­ra­t­ic sup­port structures.

Exter­nal References:

• Hun­gary’s Vik­tor Orban at CPAC: The ‘far-right inter­na­tion­al’ comes into focus — The Wash­ing­ton Post
• To sur­vive, Orban is plot­ting a far-right takeover of Brus­sels — Al Jazeera
• CPAC gives Vik­tor Orbán, Hun­gary’s auto­crat­ic leader, star role in Dal­las — NPR

Dis­claimer

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.