A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
In Hungary, voters turned out in record numbers on Sunday to put an end to strongman leader Viktor Orban's 16-year hold on power. And last night, people in Budapest poured onto the streets to celebrate.
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UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Singing) We are the champions, my friend.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Just days ago, President Trump, an ally of Orban's, sent Vice President JD Vance to Budapest to try to give the Hungarian prime minister an electoral boost. But Orban's challenger, a 45-year-old conservative named Peter Magyar and his center-right Tisza Party, won in a landslide.
MARTÍNEZ: NPR's Rob Schmitz joins us live from Budapest. Rob, I mean, all the signs were pointing toward this result. But now it - that it actually happened, I mean, how big of a surprise is it to people in Hungary?
ROB SCHMITZ, BYLINE: Yeah. For weeks, polls were showing that Viktor Orban and his Fidesz Party were trailing the Tisza Party's Peter Magyar. But most Hungarians I spoke with in the days leading up to the election did not think Orban would lose, and that's because of who he is. Viktor Orban is the longest-serving prime minister in the European Union, and in his 16 years in power, he's changed the constitution in so many ways. They were all meant to keep him and his party in power, but yesterday, he failed spectacularly.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah, by a wide margin. How did that happen?
SCHMITZ: So he lost so badly yesterday that his opponent Peter Magyar and his center-right party now have more than two-thirds of the seats in the Hungarian parliament. It's a supermajority that will allow Magyar to push forward his agenda to redemocratize Hungary, and it will also allow him to reverse the changes that Orban has made to Hungary's constitution. And the reason that Magyar got that many votes was because nearly 80% of voters turned out yesterday - more than any other election since Hungary adopted democracy after the Cold War. And last night, Magyar thanked his supporters at a massive rally along the banks of the Danube.
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PETER MAGYAR: (Speaking Hungarian).
SCHMITZ: And, A, he's saying here that, "together, we brought down the Orban regime. Together, we liberated Hungary. Together, we took back our homeland." Magyar also vowed to rebuild ties with both the EU and NATO.
MARTÍNEZ: So on that, then, what does his victory mean for the rest of Europe?
SCHMITZ: So Hungary may be a small country of 9 million people - roughly the size of New Jersey - but under Orban, it had enormous power and influence inside of Europe. Orban used Hungary's membership in the EU to block around $100 billion worth of EU aid to Ukraine. It vetoed budgets and harsh penalties on Russia. The country lodged nearly half of all EU vetoes in the past 15 years. Orban also used Hungary's EU membership as an entry point for investment and influence from authoritarian countries like Russia, China, Turkey. Orban is close friends with the leaders of all these countries. In fact, members of Orban's government have been caught handing over internal EU memos regarding Ukraine to Russia.
But perhaps most importantly, Orban has been a lasting symbol of Europe's populist far-right movement, and he was good friends with President Trump. And this stunning defeat shows the limits to that movement when the people become fed up with a populist hold on power.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. That's NPR's Rob Schmitz joining us live from Budapest. Rob, thank you very much.
SCHMITZ: You bet. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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