Goulash is Hungary’s signature dish — but its recipe is notoriously fluid. Some cooks swear by potatoes, others by tiny dumplings, and some insist on both. When the ladle dips into the pot, you can never be entirely sure what will come up. Hungarian politics currently shares in this quality.

Opinion polls, ahead of the country’s parliamentary elections on 12 April, are producing swings as if every institute were tasting the same goulash yet reporting completely different flavours. Some show a twenty-point lead for Péter Magyar’s opposition Tisza party, while others, allied to Viktor Orbán’s incumbent Fidesz party, give the prime minister a ten-point advantage. The distance between these numbers is telling in itself. What we are witnessing is not simply methodological disagreement but a peculiar ecosystem in which polling functions simultaneously as scientific measurement, communication strategy, and political weapon.

The uncertainty and unpredictability do not end there. The final stretch of this election campaign is increasingly taking the shape of a geopolitical thriller.

According to VSquare, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has tasked a team of political operatives to assist Viktor Orbán’s election campaign. This operation is reportedly being overseen by Sergei Kiriyenko, a figure who, in last year’s elections in Moldova, was linked to vote-buying networks and troll farms designed to shape the political landscape. Sources say Kiriyenko’s three-member team arrived in Hungary with diplomatic passports and are now coordinating media manipulation and other campaign activities from the Russian embassy. If these reports are accurate, next month’s election is no longer merely a domestic contest but part of a broader geopolitical game.

Yet a key question remains: what happens if Viktor Orbán loses?

Everything depends on the margin.

A narrow victory, a dangerous playbook

A narrow Tisza victory could trigger a wide range of efforts by the governing party to obstruct or delay the transfer of power. Allegations of electoral fraud, legal challenges, and demands for recounts could easily emerge. For many readers, this will sound eerily familiar. It was the exact playbook used by Donald Trump as he tried to claim, falsely, that the 2020 presidential election had been “stolen”. Immediately thereafter came a flurry of lawsuits seeking to overturn vote counts in key states and, more egregiously, attempts to pressure state officials into altering results.

Hungary’s institutional architecture would provide ample tools to put such strategies into motion — perhaps successfully. A politically subservient constitutional court, loyalists installed in key positions, and a carefully constructed legal minefield all stand ready.

More drastic measures cannot be ruled out either, for it is not unusual for authoritarians to go out swinging. Orbán’s ally Jair Bolsonaro is a case in point. The former Brazilian president is currently serving a 27-year prison sentence for organising a coup following his defeat in Brazil’s 2022 presidential elections. Declaring a state of emergency, prolonging the electoral process, or blocking institutional procedures are all instruments that a highly centralised political system can deploy when survival is at stake.

At the same time, another scenario remains possible — ironically, because of the electoral system Orbán himself designed.

Hungary’s winner-takes-more mechanics mean that even a party with less than 50 per cent of the vote could theoretically secure a two-thirds parliamentary majority. If Péter Magyar’s Tisza party were to win only a simple majority, however, the governing party might ultimately hand over power. Not because the system has suddenly rediscovered democratic self-correction, but because, for Orbán, a political comeback would remain entirely conceivable.

Modern politics offers many such precedents. Silvio Berlusconi, Benjamin Netanyahu, Donald Trump — and in the region, Robert Fico and Andrej Babiš — all demonstrate that electoral defeat is not necessarily a political finality.

An infrastructure built to endure

There is, however, one crucial difference between these leaders and the Hungarian premier. None had built an infrastructure as extensive and deeply embedded as the one Orbán has constructed over the past three decades.

This infrastructure consists of multiple layers: economic and financial resources, a vast media empire, loyal figures entrenched in legally protected positions, and a carefully cultivated and generously funded elite — from influencers to academics, from athletes to political commentators. Together they form a disciplined network capable of providing an enormous structural advantage in retaining or later reclaiming power.

The system’s resilience is further strengthened by the steady weakening or marginalisation of independent institutions. Some have been closed, others bought, and still others rendered ineffective through economic pressure.

This domestic capture is mirrored by a deliberate geopolitical strategy. Orbán’s outsized relationships with Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and Xi Jinping are not merely diplomatic manoeuvres. They are part of a framework in which Hungary’s European Union membership is used as a bargaining chip with authoritarian powers. By weakening EU unity and prioritising ties with Moscow and Beijing at the expense of his allies, Orbán seeks a form of geopolitical leverage that transcends his country’s borders.

And this is where the real paradox emerges.

While Hungary may finally be approaching a moment when Orbán’s defeat becomes plausible, the very ideas that have entrenched his power are gaining ground in several major European political systems. In Germany, France, and Britain, themes that once belonged to the political fringe — sovereignty politics, migration panic, and the mobilisation of cultural identity — are increasingly entering the mainstream.

History has a taste for irony: after Orbán eventually loses power in Hungary, European voters may well find themselves being served national dishes cooked according to his political recipe.

Help Keep Social Europe Free for Everyone

We believe quality ideas should be accessible to all — no paywalls, no barriers. Your support keeps Social Europe free and independent, funding the thought leadership, opinion, and analysis that sparks real change.