Imagine a long-standing political dynasty, Fidesz, led by Viktor Orbán, a figure who had become synonymous with Hungarian power for 16 years. They held what seemed like an unshakable grip, nurtured by a vast, government-controlled media machine that steadily churned out carefully crafted narratives and a steady stream of disinformation. This media empire was so powerful, many observers, including myself, believed it was an almost insurmountable advantage, consistently shaping public opinion and securing electoral victories. But then came April 2026, and something truly astonishing happened: Fidesz was utterly defeated by a newcomer, Péter Magyar’s Tisza party, which swept into power with a constitutional majority. This unexpected turn of events forced a critical re-evaluation of everything we thought we knew about the Hungarian information landscape and the true power of propaganda.
One of the most striking revelations was that the impact of this well-oiled propaganda machine, while significant, might have been overestimated in certain aspects. Ágnes Urbán, a Director at Mérték Media Monitor, candidly admitted that her thinking began to shift even before the election, influenced by an unexpected argument that economic data, more than propaganda, often dictates election outcomes. She now believes we might have focused too much on those directly swayed by propaganda, those whose realities were distorted. Instead, she highlights a crucial, yet often overlooked, effect: the unifying and mobilizing power of propaganda on those who saw through it. It wasn’t just about how propaganda manipulated belief, but how its blatant presence spurred a segment of society, particularly young people, into political action, rallying them against what they perceived as a deceptive force. This perspective suggests that the very excess of propaganda, instead of cementing control, inadvertently became a catalyst for opposition.
Péter Krekó, a social psychologist and Director of Political Capital, while generally cautious about purely economic explanations, agreed that the information environment crafted by the Orbán system was indeed crucial. He describes it as an “informational autocracy” that, in previous elections, successfully conjured a “virtual reality.” In this manufactured world, wildly inaccurate beliefs became the bedrock of political decisions. He recalls how, just four years prior, a significant portion of voters genuinely believed that electing the opposition would lead to mandatory gender reassignment surgeries for minors or, even more alarmingly, that it would send men to the front lines of a war. However, Krekó points to a pivotal moment that shattered this illusion: the presidential pardon scandal. This incident, involving an ally of Orbán pardoning someone linked to covering up a pedophile crime, inflicted a devastating blow to Fidesz’s campaign, which had until then leaned heavily on moralizing and moral panics. Suddenly, the government’s communication, once so potent, seemed to lose its magic. Voters, who had previously been receptive to these tactics, finally stopped believing. The old tricks, so effective in past elections, simply failed to resonate.
The Fidesz campaign, in its desperation, continued to employ its go-to tactics: fear-mongering about the war in Ukraine and baseless claims that the opposition would enforce military conscription. Yet, these familiar narratives fell flat. Krekó noted that Fidesz, having successfully stoked war fears in 2022, mistakenly assumed they could simply repeat the performance. They couldn’t. Fidesz stuck to a rigid “geopolitical monologue,” while their opponent, Tisza, shrewdly addressed the real concerns of everyday voters. Urbán added that there’s a limit to how much fear can be intensified. In 2022, the immediate context of the war worked in Fidesz’s favor. But two years later, with no imminent European war on the horizon, the narrative that “Europe wants to go to war” lost its credibility. Krekó succinctly summarized it: Fidesz’s past successes lay in seizing the “moment,” offering solutions to perceived problems like high utility prices or refugee anxieties. This time, there was no such compelling “moment,” no new crisis they could effectively exploit to rally their base.
Beyond the domestic propaganda, there was also the lingering specter of Russian interference, a concern that had been highlighted by several media outlets. Before the election, there were numerous reports about potential Russian involvement, yet my colleagues at Lakmusz, who specifically investigated disinformation of Russian origin, found that these fake news items rarely gained significant traction in the Hungarian public sphere. Urbán credits the proactive efforts of experts, particularly András Rácz, who accurately predicted potential scenarios of Russian interference and openly spoke about the dangers. This advance warning, she believes, provided Hungarian society with a surprisingly strong “immunity.” It underscored the vital role of collaboration between informed actors—experts and independent media—and citizens in safeguarding a society against external manipulation. Krekó echoed this, highlighting how Europe’s visible involvement, with investigative articles citing European intelligence sources, further prepared public opinion. Tisza’s campaign, led by Péter Magyar, also played a crucial role by preemptively addressing potential attacks. Strikingly, a late March survey revealed that the majority of voters saw Russian interference, rather than “Brussels” or the EU, as the primary external threat to the election’s integrity. Russian interference not only failed to achieve its objectives but, ironically, turned against Fidesz, casting a shadow of doubt even within their own ranks. This presented a significant lesson for Europe: Russian disinformation isn’t all-powerful, and with proper cooperation, even previously effective tactics can be neutralized.
Another novel element in this election was the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), which caused a stir in the international press. Fidesz utilized AI to create war-themed videos and a particularly viral, albeit fabricated, clip of Ursula von der Leyen calling Péter Magyar. Yet, this foray into AI proved to be a misstep. Urbán contends that Fidesz simply deployed AI too early and too crudely. Images of Manfred Weber leading Péter Magyar on a leash, generated by AI, were simply too obvious, even for less sophisticated voters, to be taken seriously. Comments on Facebook, even on pro-government pages, revealed widespread disapproval of such content. Krekó observed that the majority of voters encountered AI-generated content and strongly disapproved of its use. The very “professional propaganda machine” that had once served the government so well became a source of its moral and credibility crisis. It was as if voters had grown weary of the endlessly funded, state-sponsored disinformation. The old quantitative logic of simply pouring more money into propaganda for better results no longer held true; the political calculus had fundamentally broken down.
A critical, and perhaps underestimated, factor in Fidesz’s undoing was the decision by Meta and Google to ban political ads on their platforms starting in the fall. This drastically reduced the volume of online political advertising, despite the pro-government actors’ attempts to circumvent the new rules. Urbán emphasized the immense importance of this policy shift, crediting EU institutions for their regulation on political advertising transparency. Rather than investing in complex transparency mechanisms, Meta and Google opted for a simpler solution: a blanket ban on political ads. This, Urbán believes, was a fortunate turn for Hungary, as the national parliament had not yet implemented the EU regulation, meaning transparency rules couldn’t have been enforced otherwise. This platform-led ban effectively “pulled the rug out from under Fidesz’s campaign,” as they had the money but lost their most effective channel for spending it. Krekó recalled the “Orwellian social media environment” of previous campaigns, where political ads featuring figures like Zelensky or gender-affirming surgery would incessantly interrupt online content. He notes that in 2024, Fidesz outspent everyone else in Europe on online ads, yet still fell short of their electoral expectations. The ban, while Fidesz attempted to adapt with online activism initiatives, created a more level playing field. Péter Magyar’s posts consistently garnered twice the interaction of Orbán’s. While it’s not certain that unrestrained online ads would have saved Fidesz, the ban undoubtedly played a crucial role in preventing Fidesz from saturating the digital space, marking a significant shift in the landscape of political communication.