Reprinted from the Globe and Mail, October 17, 2026
It’s been 70 years since the start of the revolution, and thanks to Peter Magyar, the country is celebrating a renewal of hope
In October, 1956, I was a scrawny, awkward kid with an iron determination to remain in Budapest. Home was a one-room apartment I shared with my mother on the Pest side of the Danube. Had a well-aimed shell from a Soviet tank not destroyed most of that room, including our sofa bed, the dilapidated antique table, and my beloved balcony overlooking Rakoczi Avenue, I think my mother would have stayed in Hungary. Crossing the border was not going to be easy. She had tried it before when I was about five. We were caught and she spent eight months in a jail in the city of Szombathely. I spent only a few weeks with her behind bars, but I still remember the interrogation as if it were yesterday.
My mother didn’t relish having to start again, with nothing except the clothes she had worn crossing the border, no job prospects and an angry child in tow. She spoke French, but France didn’t want us, and besides, it was too close to Hungary. She reasoned, correctly, that I would try to go back. I assumed people would continue to fight the implacable enemy and die heroic deaths. That may have been a factor in her decision, in late November, to join the small group of refugees destined for New Zealand.
I grew up in New Zealand but never felt part of the place. Never felt part of any place again, until I came here. Canada took in a remarkably large contingent of us – 37,000 Hungarians in the wake of the revolution – and they quickly became part of the landscape. Foresters, developers, filmmakers, entrepreneurs, architects, lawyers, television producers, tailors, parliamentarians, publishers, booksellers, storytellers. I always loved storytellers.
Now, 70 years later, I am thinking again about the place I left behind. Or, to be accurate, never quite left behind. I have always watched what my former country was up to, visited often, talked with its writers, journalists, politicians, dissidents and opinion-makers. I met the post-Communists with their great enthusiasm for a new world order without state surveillance, and those with new ideas for how to reform a country that had not known much democracy during its centuries of existence. And I wrote about what I heard and saw.
Hungary is a small country with fewer than 10 million people in a difficult neighbourhood that armies have a nasty tendency of marching over on their way East or West. The Turks stayed for nearly 150 years, the Soviet Union 45 years, until 1989, when the Communist Party allowed for genuine multiparty elections. In 2004, Hungary was an early entrant from the “Borderlands” into the European Union. There was jubilation all around, though I remember one aging ’56-er telling me that what they had wanted from the West was democracy, not capitalism with its attendant evils of massive profits for the few and enduring poverty for many.
In recent years, I wrote about Viktor Orban’s accession to the corridors of power, his confidence, his charisma on the world stage.
The past 16 years under Mr. Orban’s Fidesz Party rule, inequality reached such manifest levels that no one could doubt that those favoured by the party, those who bought into its absolute rule, would benefit while the rest would be “othered.” Mr. Orban and his followers used every means at their disposal to attack perceived enemies. These easily included George Soros, founder of the Central European University and long-time supporter of Hungary’s democratic transformation; refugees, kept out by a new militarized fence and, like Mr. Soros, a convenient scapegoat for whatever ailed Hungarian society; the EU, referred to by Mr. Orban and his circle as “Brussels” to make sure that it would be seen as a distant city that shouldn’t make decisions affecting Hungary; Ukrainians, because Russia was at war with them and Mr. Orban’s people were such good friends with Russian President Vladimir Putin that Hungary’s then foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, chatted with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, about matters of shared interest – for example, removing Russian oligarchs, banks and corporations from the EU’s sanctioned lists. Szabolcs Panyi, an independent investigative journalist, covered the story in VSquare, a digital newsletter published outside the country on Substack, which also published an investigation about how Hungary co-ordinates with Russia to block Ukraine from joining the EU.
With government institutions, the judiciary, much of the media, and the business sector all state-supported or Orban-friendly, it was not difficult to establish a near-complete autocracy. Viktor Orban called it “illiberal democracy” and it proved durable because of changes he could make to the Fundamental Law of Hungary – the country’s Constitution. Parties who won at least two-thirds of a majority were allowed to fiddle with most aspects of governance. Matyas Eorsi, former Secretary General of the Council of Europe, told me that Mr. Orban’s control was so total that “Fidesz had ceased to exist, there was only the Orban Party, where everything was decided by Viktor Orban. All power concentrated in his hands.”
Mr. Orban’s dislike for the European Commission, presented as legitimate protest against a multinational bureaucracy, was bolstered by the EU’s withholding €22-billion over concerns about the independence of the judiciary, human rights and corruption. Meanwhile billions of government money poured into the pockets of Viktor Orban’s family, friends, the families of those friends and his consistent supporters.
All this appealed to U.S. President Donald Trump’s MAGA followers, as did Mr. Orban’s crackdown on dissent, on the LGBTQ community and his silencing of independent voices by using allies to buy news organizations. Tucker Carlson, broadcasting from Budapest, presented Mr. Orban’s government as a model for America. Former Trump strategist Steve Bannon extolled Mr. Orban’s virtues, describing him as “Trump before Trump.” Marco Rubio visited Hungary, as did Vice-President JD Vance, most recently just before the last elections in April. Mr. Trump endorsed Mr. Orban on his social-media platform.
None of this turned the tide in Mr. Orban’s favour.
Peter Magyar’s Tisza party‘s resounding victory in the 2026 elections swept out the Orban regime.
Was it the economic crisis? The collapsed public service? The desperate situation in hospitals, in education, in transportation? Was it the naked show of entitlement, as author and politician Jozsef Debreczeni, an erstwhile supporter, later critic, described Mr. Orban’s time in office. In a recent speech in parliament, Mr. Magyar, the new Prime Minister, spoke about how Mr. Orban’s ministers would not share even an elevator, an entrance, let alone chairs or a washroom with members of their own staff.
Mr. Magyar’s characterization of the Orban government as a “Mafia state” and a “parasite regime” that used the country’s financial resources for private plunder resonated with voters. Balint Magyar’s 2013 book Magyar polip – A posztkommunista maffiaállam (translated as “The Anatomy of the Hungarian Mafia State”), likely provided Peter Magyar with the language for victory over Fidesz. It was not a victory of one ideology over another, as previous elections pitted liberal democrats against communists or conservatives against socialists. It was someone saying “enough” of the cronyism, the kleptocracy masquerading as a political party.
Because all national media had been acquired by Viktor Orban’s people, Mr. Magyar could not be heard until he started to travel across the country to speak directly to Hungarians. He talked about the stolen billions he would return to the Treasury. He vowed to rid the country of the network of politicians and oligarchs, and to cut off the tentacles of the Orban regime. He promised to reconcile Hungary with the European Union. He did not talk about ideas, but regime change, to end the “system of national looting” as Balint Magyar had characterized it.
On April 13, 2026, after Peter Magyar’s Tisza Party won with a supermajority, there were massive celebrations everywhere. I watched the one near the improbably ornate Gothic parliament building, where techno music was pounding, loud, as were the cheers, and the soon-to-be Minister of Health, Zsolt Hegedus, danced on the stage next to Mr. Magyar.
The new Prime Minister announced the beginning of “Operation Cleansing Fire,” removing Mr. Orban’s puppets, replacing the supine President, reforming the National Judicial Court, reducing term limits for elected politicians and withdrawing their immunity from prosecution. A new National Asset Recovery and Protection Office would go after purloined state funds – estimated at between €50–billion and €100-billion – though there were doubts this would ever be accomplished. “So much of the stolen money has already made its way out of the country or sped through numerous foreign bank accounts to end up god knows where,” said the journalist Janos Szeky. The National Bank itself was run by an Orban-loyalist.
Nicholas Sarvari, a corporate crimes investigator, is more optimistic. There are already a few criminal investigations and some civil suits against individuals. “While it’s important to stay away from revenge, with the right intelligence, the new government can locate the networks that sucked in public funds,” he said.
Meantime, there has already been a whole sea-change in the media. Since Mr. Magyar ended NER (Nemzeti Együttműködés Rendszere, translated as the System of National Co-operation, one of the Orban regime’s obvious networks of political patronage) and cut off government support of Orban-friendly media, hundreds of journalists have lost their jobs. That included Mediaworks, Hungary’s largest media empire, owned by Lorinc Meszaros, the former gas fitter from Felcsut, now the country’s wealthiest man. (Felcsut is, not coincidentally, Viktor Orban’s home village and Mr. Meszaros is his childhood friend.)
Mr. Magyar’s early success to address the Orban regime’s corrupt practices, and his judiciary reforms, have prompted the European Commission to release 16.4 billion withheld euros.
So who is Peter Magyar, the 45-year old who defeated Viktor Orban’s entrenched regime? A young lawyer, he had been an early Fidesz supporter. His wife, Judit Varga, became a political adviser to the party’s European Parliament office, and Mr. Magyar was appointed to the Hungarian team at the EU. In 2019, he joined the board of a government-owned roads company and Ms. Varga was appointed Minister of Justice. They were both ambitious – but Mr. Magyar perhaps more obviously than Ms. Varga. They divorced in 2023.
She resigned from the Ministry of Justice in 2023 after a scandal about an unconditional presidential pardon for a man convicted of sexual abuse of minors at a children’s home. Shortly after her resignation, Mr. Magyar posted on Facebook his secretly recorded conversation with Ms. Varga talking about interference in the prosecution of a corruption case. One of her statements echoed Balint Magyar’s about the regime: “… this is a mafia you cannot just walk out of.”
These revelations, the disgust over the pardon for a sexual predator, and his insistence that there should be more resignations in the Fidesz ranks brought Mr. Magyar the surge of support he needed to launch the Tisza Party’s election campaign. In March, 2026, when Mr. Orban’s people were beginning to confront the possibility of defeat, Hungary’s anti-terror police stopped two Ukrainian armoured vehicles, roughed up the guards and confiscated around €70-million worth of gold and cash. Mr. Orban’s campaign announced a successful operation to stop foreign money going to the opposition. In fact, as it was later revealed to be a legal transfer of bank funds from Kyiv to Vienna. The revelation was one more nail in Fidesz’s coffin.
The election was not waged over ideas or ideologies. Rather, Mr. Magyar’s victory was the result of the country’s exhaustion with the Mafia state, and the enrichment of the few at the expense of the rest. The difficult tasks will be to restore the missing billions and public trust in the country’s institutions.
While Mr. Magyar is not Mr. Orban, he’s also not a progressive politician. His party is conservative and Christian. Mr. Magyar does not subscribe to EU’s migrant recommendations; he does not openly support Ukraine, and he is, he says, seeking a constructive relationship with Russia – including the reliance on Russian energy.
He also declared his dislike for socialists and their leftist policies. Hungary’s Fundamental Law allows a parliament’s supermajority – as it did Fidesz – to change laws. Fidesz used it to get rid of unfriendly judges, push through appointments and empower self-dealing institutions (such as NER) that served Mr. Orban. Now, Mr. Magyar is dismantling the system that allowed Mr. Orban’s family and friends to enrich themselves. He may be able to go after Mr. Orban, personally, for ordering the attack on the Ukrainian bank transport.
Meanwhile, there are complaints that Mr. Magyar is not moving fast enough to reclaim the purloined billions, that it’s taking too long to start legal proceedings against individuals who took part in the mafia system of loyalty in exchange for personal enrichment. And there are concerns that the use of his supermajority to change the Fundamental Law and his increasingly populist, strongman style could become a liability.
Michael Ignatieff, former rector of the Central European University, which relocated from Budapest to Vienna in 2019, said Mr. Orban’s defeat may signal a shift in Europe’s far-right, illiberal tide. “Budapest is the headquarters of illiberal democracy in the world,” he told the BBC before the election. “This is not just an election. This is a referendum on the whole model of authoritarian rule that Orban represents.”
As for Viktor Orban, he may be spending more time on his Hatvanpuszta estate, his massive complex with swimming pools, zebras and a fabulous library. It is rumoured that Mr. Trump is looking for a soft landing for him but he is busy with his own midterms, at a time when it’s been proven that even autocrats can fail in an election.
It’s been an extraordinary year for Hungarians, and wonderful to see all the enthusiastic, young faces celebrating the renewal of hope. They remind me of the fearless young faces I saw in the streets of Budapest in October of 1956. Seventy years have passed, and many of us are no longer around to remember. This week, I shall visit a few of my ’56-er friends in Toronto’s Mount Pleasant Cemetery and wish them well.