Tomás Ó Flatharta

Looking at Things from the Left

Posts Tagged ‘Hungary

Hungary – “Defeating Orbán is One Thing – Defeating Orbanism Quite Another”

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Donnacha Ó Beacháin discussed the Hungary elections with Flor MacCarthy and

@shonamurray.bsky.social on Oireachtas TV. Defeating Orbán is one thing, dismantling Orbánism quite another Expectations are high and Magyar’s support base is diverse, even contradictory. Managing expectations will be key to avoiding fragmentation

Discussed Hungary elections with Flor MacCarthy and @shonamurray.bsky.social on Oireachtas TVDefeating Orbán is one thing, dismantling Orbánism quite anotherExpectations are high and Magyar’s support base is diverse, even contradictory. Managing expectations will be key to avoiding fragmentation

Donnacha Ó Beacháin (@donnachadcu.bsky.social) 2026-04-27T05:52:44.347Z

Six lessons from Hungary’s vote and Orbán’s defeat An “illiberal democracy” can be ousted — what India and the world should learn

Link :
Six lessons from Hungary’s vote and Orbán’s defeat

Kavita Krishnan examines the fall of Orbán in greater detail here :

Writing in The Hindu after Viktor Orbán’s 12 April 2026 electoral defeat, Indian Marxist-feminist Kavita Krishnan draws six lessons for an international readership and, above all, for India under Narendra Modi. She argues that illiberal democracies can be ousted at the ballot box; that obituaries for universal democracy are premature; that Ukraine won the Hungarian vote; that regime-change accusations are confessions; that Orbán’s fall is a defeat for Xi Jinping as well as Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu; and that pro-democracy forces must now discard the “West versus rest” map and consolidate their gains across borders. [AN]


Hungarian voters have swept their far-right strongman Viktor Orbán out of office, ending his 16-year run as Prime Minister and electoral autocrat. Here are six lessons the world can take from them.

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Multiple Bullies At Work, Out to Create a “Multipolar World” – Kavita Krishnan

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Two interesting articles by Kavita Krishnan are below.

The author explains :

My article in The Hindu on what’s at stake for Ukraine and the world.
I try to get all my material on Ukraine from the horse’s mouth: I just read Putin, Dugin, Vance, Mearsheimer really thoroughly – and they confirm all that I’m saying, without even bothering to disguise their intent. There can’t be more reliable and irrefutable sources.
The article attached is based on reading Mearsheimer himself saying Putin’s top peace condition is a puppet regime in Kyiv, since liberal democracy in Ukraine is an “existential threat to Russia”.

Kavita Krishnan

The second article examines the recent electoral defeat of Viktor Orbán in Hungary

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Hungary 2026: An Autopsy of Sixteen Years of Illiberalism

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A few days before the Hungarian general election held on April 12 2026 the USA Vice president JD Vance flew into Budapest campaigning for the far-right prime minister Viktor Orbán. Vance, a high-profile member of the Catholic Church, picked the wrong place to boost a close ally. The self-described hillbilly bombed in Budapest.

Orbán was also strongly backed by the far-right president of Russia, Vladimir Putin. Hungary joins a growing list of countries where candidates closely aligned with the far-right twins Trump-Putin sink to a humiliating defeat.

Adam Novak explores the issues in the interview below published on the
Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières (ESSF) site:

Link :


Hungary 2026: An Autopsy of Sixteen Years of Illiberalism.

Among the fascinating details in the article below, we highlight two :

For Trump and Vance, it is the loss of the most useful ally within the European Council — the one who blocked collective decisions on Ukraine, including the 90-billion-euro loan to Kyiv that Orbán had vetoed. For Putin, it is the loss of the most accommodating European government on energy and sanctions. For European far-right parties, it is the signal that the model is not election-proof.

Vance delivered a speech on Christ and the Christian foundations of European civilisation before a comparatively secular Hungarian audience. He invoked workers’ rights without saying a word about the tech billionaires enriched under Trump. And he denounced Brussels bureaucrats for “making millions” whilst saying nothing of the oligarchy that Orbán himself built. The electoral effect of the visit is close to zero: Vance is little known in Hungary, and it was not Trump who came.

Hungary 2026: An Autopsy of Sixteen Years of Illiberalism.

After Orbán: Electoral Fractures and the Programmatic Void

The Hungarian legislative elections of 12 April 2026 brought to an end sixteen years of uninterrupted rule by Viktor Orbán. Péter Magyar’s Tisza (Respect and Freedom [Tisztelet és Szabadság]) party won a super-majority of 138 seats out of 199, inflicting on Fidesz a defeat explained by judicial scandals, saturation of the identitarian discourse, a generational fracture, and the concrete effects of the freeze on European funds.

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