What led Orbán to the defeat and why autocracies are fragile

For 16 years, Viktor Orbán’s Hungary embodied a troubling idea: that "illiberal democracy" could be made stable and entrench itself in power.

Combining electoral dominance with the systematic weakening of institutional checks and balances, Orbán appeared to solve a central dilemma of modern authoritarianism: how to win repeatedly at the ballot box while hollowing out liberal democracy.

The victory of Péter Magyar’s Tisza party, like the triumph of Poland’s Civic Coalition over the illiberal Law and Justice (PiS) party in 2023, represents not only a reversal of a seemingly consolidated system, but also signals that such regimes may be more fragile than they appear.

Read more about the fragility of autocracies on the Hungarian example in the article by Laszlo Bruszt of the Central European University: Why Orbán lost: what vulnerability of autocracies the elections in Hungary revealed.

The author points out that illiberal leaders have long justified their concentration of power by invoking the success of East Asia’s developmental states.

According to him, the regimes of South Korea’s Park Chung-hee or Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew were effective not because they faced fewer constraints, but because they faced more pressure.

Geopolitical insecurity and the constant risk of domestic unrest forced them to deliver broad-based gains or risk collapse.

"Contemporary illiberal regimes operate under very different conditions. In the absence of pressures comparable to those faced by Park and Lee, the weakening of accountability does not generate developmental capacity. Instead, it creates opportunities for rent-seeking," Bruszt writes.

Instead, the author adds, power becomes a resource for maintaining political coalitions rather than for delivering public goods.

A supposed strategy for strengthening state capacity turns into a system of selective distribution.

"Over time, this logic erodes the economic foundations of illiberal rule. When political loyalty becomes the primary criterion for allocating resources, efficiency and innovation suffer," the professor writes.

As he thinks, that is what happened to Hungary under Orbán. As economic performance weakened, so did the regime’s capacity to sustain its supporting coalition.

The political scientist underlines that access to these resources became increasingly conditional on government transparency and judicial independence

"Hungary’s model relied on a tenuous coalition of multinational firms, politically connected domestic elites, and voters promised stability and economic improvement.

But as growth slowed, tensions within this coalition intensified. Domestic businesses found fewer opportunities, while voters faced declining living standards and blocked futures", Laszlo Bruszt writes.

According to him, defeating Orbán became possible when discontent met organization – when a credible challenger united fragmented voters and turned frustration into participation.

He points out a very important detail: Orbán’s defeat, like the defeat of Poland’s PiS three years ago, does not mark the end of illiberalism.

"Defeating illiberalism at the ballot box was hard. Building a resilient form of liberal democracy in its aftermath – one capable of delivering both accountability and inclusion – might be even harder", the professor concludes.