Papal visit three years ago led to Orban’s crushing loss

People poring over the crushing defeat of Viktor Orban’s government in Hungary - the most right wing in Europe - will draw the conclusions that his antipathy to the EU, closeness to Vladimir Putin, failure to address younger voters and a sense of political corruption were at the heart of his downfall.

- DAVID MADDOX

Yet while this may be the case, all these factors were also true about Orban when he won an equally crushing victory in the 2022 election, a result which seemed to leave him untouchable.

In fact, he was arguably in a politically stronger position this time than he was in 2022, with his friend Donald Trump in the White House rather than a political enemy in Joe Biden. He even had the US vice-president JD Vance doing a last-minute cheerleading act at a rally on the eve of the poll, although polls suggest this may have hurt rather than helped.

What changed in the four years since that win, which left the opposition to his Fidesz party almost wiped out?

The truth is that the unravelling began with a visit by Pope Francis, and a scandal which followed that exposed the political corruption within Fidesz and Orban’s government, ended the careers of two of his political allies and put rocket boosters on Peter Magyar’s push to replace him as prime minister.

An unlikely Papal visit

In April 2023, Pope Francis made an official visit to Hungary in a visit which was to be a crowning moment in the Orban era and a stamp of approval of his right-wing Catholic, pro-family, anti-LGBT+ policies.

It was an unlikely trip, though, politically. Francis and Orban were diametrically opposed, particularly on Orban’s hardline attitude to migrants. But at the same time, Pope Francis had a soft spot for Hungary. When he was head of the Jesuits in Argentina, he had got to know Hungarian nuns who had fled the country as a result of the Communists putting down the 1956 uprising, and learnt their language.