Hungary's next premier calls for sweeping change after Orban

Zoltan Simon, Bloomberg News on Apr 12, 2026

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Peter Magyar, Hungary’s next prime minister, wasted no time in outlining sweeping changes after ending Viktor Orban’s 16-year rule in a landslide election victory that will redefine the country’s ties with the European Union, Russia and the U.S. administration of President Donald Trump.

Magyar, a 45-year-old former ruling party insider, called on the country’s president, top justices and chief prosecutor to hand in their resignations during his victory speech in front of a cheering crowd in Budapest on Sunday. He said they had betrayed their responsibilities by putting their political loyalties to Orban first.

“Those who betrayed the country must take responsibility,” Magyar said with the Danube river and a lit-up parliament building behind him. He said he would “liberate Hungary and take back our country.”

Magyar had campaigned on not only ousting the pro-Kremlin nationalist leader but his self-styled illiberal system. Tisza’s overwhelming victory, in which the party was on track to win a two-thirds parliamentary majority, gave him a mandate for just that, he said.

Magyar had galvanized the country over the past two years with his message of change in the face of an increasingly authoritarian regime.

The result is a blow to Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who sought to keep the European Union’s longest serving prime minister in power. The outcome also marks a defeat for the nationalist camp in Europe for whom Orban had been a trailblazer and the driving force behind its Patriots party, now the third-largest inside the European Parliament.