The president of the Tisza Party, Peter Magyar looks at the camera during his reply on his press conference in Budapest. Magyar — the biggest opposition of Viktor Orban and the Fidesz — went to a polling station (Hegyvideki Mesevar Ovoda) to vote and then he held a press conference for the Hungarian and international media in Budapest.
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Hungary’s opposition Tisza party appeared on track to win Sunday’s national election, early results showed, in a potential landmark defeat for veteran Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a Russia ally who also had the backing of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Results from 29% of votes counted showed the upstart center-right Tisza of Peter Magyar winning 132 seats in the 199-member parliament, ahead of Orban’s nationalist Fidesz party.
“We are optimistic,” Magyar told a briefing in a Budapest hotel where his party held its election night headquarters, as cheering crowds gathered in the surrounding streets as results of the poll started to roll in.
Pollsters predicted a record voter turnout, with Hungarian television showing long queues outside some voting stations in Budapest. Data at 1630 GMT, half an hour before the polls were due to close, showed 77.8% of voters had cast their ballots, up from 67.8% four years earlier.
If the final results confirm the early readings, an end to Orban’s period in government after 16 years in power would have significant implications not only for Hungary, but for the European Union, Ukraine and beyond.
It would likely spell an end to Hungary’s adversarial role within the EU, possibly opening the way for a 90 billion-euro ($105 billion) loan to war-battered Ukraine, which Orban has blocked.
BUDAPEST, HUNGARY – APRIL 12: People arrive to cast their votes during the Hungarian parliamentary elections at a polling station on April 12, 2026 in Budapest, Hungary. (Photo by Janos Kummer/Getty Images)
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Defeat for Orban could also mean the eventual release of EU funds to Hungary that the bloc had suspended due to what Brussels said was Orban’s erosion of democratic standards.
If confirmed, his exit would also deprive Russian President Vladimir Putin of his main ally in the EU and send shockwaves through Western right-wing circles, including the White House.
In Hungary, a Tisza victory could open the way for reforms that the party says would aim to combat corruption and restore the independence of the judiciary and other institutions.
However, the extent of such reforms will depend on whether Tisza can secure the two-thirds constitutional majority needed to reverse much of Orban’s legacy.
Economic stagnation hurt Orban’s support
Orban, a eurosceptic, carved out a model of an “illiberal democracy” seen as a blueprint by Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement and its admirers in Europe.
But many Hungarians have grown increasingly weary of Orban, 62, after three years of economic stagnation and soaring living costs, as well as reports of oligarchs close to the government amassing more wealth.
Tisza’s leader, Magyar, appears to have successfully tapped into this frustration.
Casting his vote for Tisza in the Hungarian capital, Mihaly Bacsi, 27, said the country needed change.
“We need an improvement in public mood; there is too much tension in many areas, and the current government only fuels these sentiments,” he said.
Another voter, who gave her name as Zsuzsa, said she wanted continuity.
“I would really like it if all the results that have been achieved in recent years remain — and I am terribly afraid of the war,” she said, referring to the conflict raging in Ukraine, Hungary’s eastern neighbor.
Orban sought to cast Sunday’s election as a choice between “war and peace.” During campaigning, the government blanketed the country with signs warning that Magyar would drag Hungary into Russia’s war with Ukraine, something he strongly denies.