April 26, 2026, 9:55 a.mApril 26, 2026, 9:55 a.m
After losing the parliamentary election two weeks ago, the outgoing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban announced that he would not accept his mandate as a member of parliament. “I am not needed in parliament now, but in the reorganization of the national camp,” said Orban in a video that he published on his Facebook page.
Viktor Orban resigns from his parliamentary mandate.Image: keystone
Orban’s previously ruling right-wing populist Fidesz party only won 52 of 199 seats in the parliamentary elections on April 12 and must therefore go into opposition. The election winner, Peter Magyar’s bourgeois Tisza party, won 141 seats and had a two-thirds majority to change the constitution. Magyar comes from Fidesz, but demonstratively broke with Orban and his party two years ago.
Orban ruled the Central European EU country in an increasingly authoritarian manner for 16 years. In the EU, he was considered the most pro-Kremlin head of government, often using his vetoes to block sanctions against Russia and aid for Ukraine. In the election campaign, Magyar scored points by denouncing the country’s economic standstill in recent years and the rampant corruption surrounding Orban.
The outgoing head of government entered the race as his party’s top candidate in the election on April 12th. Observers interpret his renunciation of the parliamentary mandate as meaning that, after Fidesz’s crushing election defeat, Orban is concentrating on retaining his unlimited power as chairman of the future opposition party.
Political scientist: Lack of sense of reality
In his Facebook statement, Orban announced a Fidesz party conference in June at which the top committees would be re-elected. He added that he would be available for the chairmanship again if the party congress expressed its confidence in him. The political analyst Gabor Török therefore attested that he lacked a sense of reality. “The party and its leader are not yet ready to recognize the need of the hour and the severity of the electoral defeat,” he wrote. (hkl/sda/dpa)