“We did it,” Péter Magyar told a crowd of cheering supporters in a square beside the River Danube, overlooking Budapest’s magnificent parliament on the other side.
“Together we overthrew the Hungarian regime.”
Preliminary results, based on more than 98% of votes counted, put his Tisza party on course for an extraordinary 138 seats, with Orbán’s Fidesz on 55 and the far-right Our Homeland on six.
For two years Magyar took his burgeoning movement around villages, town squares and cities, rallying Hungarians who had had enough of the cronyism and corruption that had become endemic over years.
“Never before in the history of democratic Hungary have so many people voted – and no single party has ever received such a strong mandate,” he said on Sunday night, after a record 79% of the electorate turned out to vote.
Orbán’s rule was built up through four successive election victories and sweeping majorities, but it was over in a matter of minutes.
As pro-Magyar supporters waited expectantly in the square on the Buda side of the Danube, the Tisza leader posted an extraordinary message on Facebook: “Viktor Orbán just called me on the phone and congratulated us on our victory.”
For two years Magyar took his burgeoning movement around villages, town squares and cities, rallying Hungarians who had had enough of the cronyism and corruption that had become endemic over years.
“Never before in the history of democratic Hungary have so many people voted – and no single party has ever received such a strong mandate,” he said on Sunday night, after a record 79% of the electorate turned out to vote.Another target in Magyar’s sights is pro-Orbán state media. The M1 TV channel has until now slavishly toed the party line, along with what were once independent websites bought up over time by Fidesz allies.
Apparently uncertain what to do next, M1 rebroadcast a speech that Magyar had given just after the vote had finished. He had been hopeful of victory at the time, but by now the speech was out of date – he had already won.
Hungary has for some time felt like two different worlds running in tandem. In one, Orbán convinced his supporters and TV viewers they were heading for victory and four more years in power, backed up by opinion polls run by sympathetic pollsters, who continued to forecast a Fidesz victory as late as Sunday evening.
In the other world was Magyar, attracting big crowds wherever he went, backed up by respected pollsters reporting an increasing lead over his rival.
On Sunday night, those two worlds collided, and only one was real.
If Tisza’s two-thirds majority is confirmed, state TV is set for change.
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