Election loss for Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán has ripple effects for Trump, US conservatives
WASHINGTON (AP) — The weekend’s big election took place in a small European country nearly half a world away from Washington, but Defeat of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán It had significant repercussions in the United States.
This is because President Donald Trump and many US conservatives I have embraced Orbán for a long timeHe became an icon on the global right with his anti-immigrant stance. American president’s agenda Striking parallels Just as the Hungarian leader used the levers of government to manipulate the media, judiciary and electoral system to keep his party in power for 16 years.
Embers Supported Orbán’s re-election bid and even shipped Vice President J.D. Vance traveled to Budapest last week to support the incumbent president in the midst of the Iran war.
Orbán’s loss reminds us how it happened War diminished Trump’s ability leaders’ limited ability to use their power to sway the vote in their direction, as well as to aid allied politicians abroad Worldwide discontent with incumbents of all ideological stripes.
“Despite the skewed playing field, the opposition can win,” said Steven Levitsky, a professor of politics at Harvard and co-author of “How Democracies Die.” “Democracies face many challenges in many parts of the world, but so do autocracies.”
Orbán’s defeat has global implications because he was the European leader closest to Russian President Vladimir Putin and had blocked European Union aid to Ukraine, which is defending itself after Russia’s 2022 invasion.
His downfall was celebrated Sunday by Democrats and Republicans alike; Some of them criticized their own administration for giving such open support to the Hungarian leader.
“Don’t shovel in the elections of other democracies,” Republican Representative Don Bacon from Nebraska said on social media site X.
“The freedom-loving people of Hungary voted decisively in favor of democracy and the rule of law,” said Republican Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi.
Matt Schlapp, president of the American Conservative Union, is part of the wing of the American right. embraced Orbán. The Conservative Political Action Conference, hosted by Schlapp’s group, held its first European session in Budapest and included Hungary. a regular destination.
Orban is a featured speaker at the group’s 2022 conference in Dallas.
Schlapp said there was an easy explanation for Orbán’s loss.
“In the end, democracies just want change,” he said. “In democracies, there are no kings and ultimately the people speak.”
“The people of Hungary were saying, ‘We are having a hard time with inflation, economy and war. Let’s try the new man,'” said Schlapp, noting that Trump supported the Iran war, but the turmoil caused by this war, especially in the European energy markets, harmed Orbán.
Far-right Romanian member of the European Parliament Diana Sosoaca said on Sunday that Vance’s visit to Hungary was a “big mistake” given the widespread reaction to Iran’s war on the continent.
“Are you inviting a representative of the United States of America, which has created great turmoil in the world?” Sosoaca said in an interview broadcast by the Kremlin-controlled RT network, formerly known as Russia Today. “This was the biggest mistake he could have made before the election.”
How did Orbán consolidate his power?
An anti-communist activist in his youth, Orbán was first elected prime minister in 1998, but turned to the right after being voted out in 2002. After returning to office in 2010, Orbán and his Fidesz party implemented a legal framework to consolidate the authority he and his allies had developed while out of power.
Orbán has embraced what he calls “illiberal democracy” and built a barrier on Hungary’s southern border to block migrants from Africa and Asia heading north through Europe. Him and his party Suppression of LGBTQ+ rightsdemolished freedom of the press and undermined judicial independence.
Orbán consolidated power when his Fidesz party won enough seats in Parliament during the global recession in 2010 to rewrite the country’s constitution. They restructured the judiciary to funnel appointments to the bench through party loyalists, realigned legislative districts to make it more difficult for Fidesz members to lose elections, and helped sell Hungary’s media companies to businessmen allied with Orban.
The European Union declared Hungary “Electoral autocracy.”
Orbán’s supporters scoffed at suggestions that the Hungarian leader was an enemy of democracy, and on Sunday he quickly acknowledged his loss. Democrats worry that Trump, like Trump, will try to use his own executive authority to swing the November midterm elections or the 2028 presidential election to his party He tried to use his official powers overthrow Democrat Joe Biden’s victory In the 2020 presidential election.
“Most importantly for American voters, even a man who rigs the system can be defeated when the people unite and oppose him,” said Ian Bassin of Protecting Democracy, a nonpartisan group that says it fights authoritarianism.
Democrats weigh in
Democratic Representative Ro Khanna of California took the opportunity to hit Vance hard: “Your ally Orban agreed. In 2028, will @JDVance follow suit if you lose?” He shared on X.
Levitsky said democracy advocates should not take too much solace from Orbán’s loss, noting that Trump was more repressive in some ways. Levitsky cited Trump’s use of the Justice Department to investigate political opponents and the shooting deaths of protesters by immigration officers; These steps were steps that the Orban government never took, he said.
But Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, said he sees parallels between Trump and Orban’s political projects as well as their parties’ potential fate at the ballot box.
“He was essentially doing what Donald Trump was trying to do in the United States,” Van Hollen said of Orban. “What I’ve read about the election is that the people of Hungary reject it, just like people here in the United States reject it.”
Trump did not comment publicly on the election results in Hungary on Sunday.
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Riccardi reported from Denver.
