Formally, it was only a local election. But actually, it was about the whole thing: a referendum on the Orbán system - and whether the opposition manages to defeat the Hungarian Prime Minister and his Fidesz party in spite of their overwhelming superiority in an election.
A failure would probably have been the end of the opposition party landscape of Hungary in its present form. But the opposition did it against the vast majority of forecasts:
- In Budapest, the common candidate of the opposition, the green-left-liberal politician Gergely Karácsony, surprisingly won with 51 percent of the vote.
- Three of Hungary's four largest cities went to the opposition, as well as a number of smaller county towns.
- It is the first time since 2010 that Orbán and his party have suffered a massive election defeat - if only in a local election.
Hungary's opposition parties celebrate their victory euphorically - as a triumph over Orbán, as a "victory of democracy" and as a direction signal for the parliamentary election in 2022. Independent Hungarian media speak of a "landslide victory" and a "resounding slap in the face" for the Hungarian prime minister and his system.
Orbán won three times with a two-thirds majority
The opposition parties, from left to right, met with common candidates in most cities and towns, or at least not against each other. Many had seen it as a last resort to oppose Orbán's crushing political and administrative system.
For more than a decade, Hungary's prime minister has been winning elections with his party's concept of a "central political force field," with small left and right-wing opposition parties blocking each other for years.
Orbán has won three national elections since 2010, each with a constitutional two-thirds majority, and used this for a comprehensive and anti-democratic transformation in administration, justice, electoral and media law, and strong centralization of the state, which has traditionally strong local self-governments lost many powers.
Dirty election campaign
That the opposition, on whose "miserable condition" Orbán liked to slander in recent times with great venom, to the much-proclaimed "összefogás", decided to merge and thus to common electoral process, was an alarm signal for Fidesz. Accordingly, the election campaign was canceled - it was the most unfair and filthy that post-communist Hungary has ever experienced, and the country's political culture has plunged to a new low.
- Opposition candidates were harassed by the police, their appearances by Fidesz activists disturbed, Fidesz politicians spread absurd lies about the opposition's plans to settle migrants in Hungary nationwide.
- Government-run media published fretted polls, secretly recorded talks by opposition politicians, and a sex video of an opposition politician lured into a trap by a prostitute.
- And: Orbán and other Fidesz politicians threatened more or less directly to cut funding to cities and local authorities should win opposition candidates.
Two weeks before the election, a real sex video burst into the campaign. The protagonist is Zsolt Borkai, a former Olympic champion who is today Fidesz mayor of the northeastern city of Gyor, where the German Audi Group has one of its largest factories - one of the most important taxpayers and exporters in Hungary.
The video from May 2018 shows Borkai having sex with a prostitute during an orgy-like party on a yacht in the Croatian Adriatic. Not only did this collide with Borkai's public image as a good family man and defender of Christian-traditional values.
Symbol of dodgy enrichment
In the wake of the scandal around Borkai, Hungarian media also published research on how Borkai and his confidants trickily seize public funds and provide for family members and friends, with the threads of the affair reaching into Orbán's environment.
Borkai became a symbol of shady enrichment and corruption by many Fidesz politicians or business people from Orbán's environment. The Borkai affair may have cost Fidesz many votes, voters have punished the "arrogance of power," writes the weekly hvg.
Viktor Orbán responded on Monday night in his speech after the electoral defeat half meek, half defiant. Contrary to his previous statements, he offered the opposition cooperation, emphasizing that Fidesz was still Hungary's strongest party.
Szilard Koszticsak / MTI / AP
Viktor Orbán after the election in Budapest
Whether the opposition will be able to repeat its current election victory in the parliamentary election of 2022 is more than questionable, especially since the legal electoral conditions in national elections are a lot more unfair and favor Fidesz even more than in local elections.
It is also possible that more people are coming to terms with Orbán's system than anyone suspects: in Györ, Zsolt Borkai won out despite sex video and allegations of corruption.
