Ever since the elections, there has been a sense of euphoria sweeping the country that surpasses even the enthusiasm that followed the democratic transition of 1989. Yet, one of the key lessons drawn from both the revolutionary 1989 and the counter-revolutionary 2011 constitution-making processes is that both were elite-driven, lacking any participatory dimension – a shortcoming that may have contributed to the subsequent fall of liberal democracy. Today, two-thirds of Hungarians would like to see Viktor Orbán brought to justice for the crimes he committed against them, and the overwhelming and enduring euphoria coursing through the country could yet channel itself into genuine “constitutional enthusiasm”. Perhaps Hungary has yet another chance to seize that constitutional moment.

The Political System: Electoral Autocracy

Since 2010 Hungary has received international attention for being the first fully consolidated democracy to turn into an autocracy. Both Freedom House and the Varieties of Democracy Project have tracked Hungary as it has passed from a “consolidated” democracy (Freedom House in 2010) through the “partially consolidated” category (Freedom House in 2015) into the status of a “hybrid regime” (Freedom House) or “electoral autocracy” (V-Dem). Even the competitive character of the free and fair election system was called into question from the 2014 parliamentary elections onwards by International Election Observation Missions of OSCE/ODIHR, including the 2026 election lost by Fidesz, where “there was no level playing field, with the ruling party benefitting from systemic advantages that blurred the line between state and party”.

After Orbán immediately conceded his electoral defeat, some scholars who had even contested the non-democratic character of the regime started to see their view vindicated by the victory of the opposition. So did those, who from the very beginning threated the system as a “plebiscitary leader democracy”, where after the democratic elections the electorate entrusts governance to the charismatic leader, and this system will continue with Péter Magyar. It is not hard to see that loss of the election and the leader’s concession do not make the system retroactively democratic, just as the Communist regime did not become a democracy after the 1990 democratic elections in Hungary and elsewhere. With a landslide victory of 53 %, Tisza secured a two-thirds majority of the seats in a system that strongly favoured the expected winner, Fidesz, for whom 45% would have been enough to obtain the same qualified majority. All in all, the political system of the Orbán regime can be characterized as an electoral autocracy, which even fails to fulfil all the requirements of a competitive authoritarian hybrid regime.

The Socio-Economic Relations: Mafia State or Family Corruption Business

Besides the descriptions of political scientists and constitutional law scholars, sociologists and economists emphasize the special role of corruption, which positioned Viktor Orbán, the charismatic political leader of the political system, as the head of a mafia state or family corruption business. The sociologist Bálint Magyar, in his seminal book on the Hungarian mafia state, asserts that not only the governing party Fidesz and the state of Hungary was placed under the control of a single individual, but the entire economy as well. Viktor Orbán and his political family, Fidesz, employed mafia methods and concentrated wealth in the hands of a small group of insiders. While the traditional mafia usually channels wealth and economic players into its spheres of influence by means of direct coercion, Orbán’s mafia state did the same by means of parliamentary legislation, legal prosecution, tax authority, police forces and the secret service.

David Jancsics, a corruption researcher, also describes the system of National Cooperation in which political power, the distribution of state resources, and economic accumulation are not separate spheres but are closely intertwined along a stable organizing principle: family relations. Here, Orbán’s extended family, including his children and their families, but also his childhood friend and later gas-fitter, who, as his Stroman, has become nominally the richest person in the country, are not merely the beneficiaries of power. Rather, political power itself is systematically transformed into their intergenerational private property. This distinguishes the phenomenon from simple corruption.

Reasons for Orbán Regime’s Fall

As a constitutional scholar, I would love to say that the current defeat of Fidesz was exclusively caused by the dismantlement of liberal democracy, but unfortunately, I cannot. The truth is that more than half of the Hungarian voters have tolerated that or have been nonchalant for fifteen years till the living conditions started to deteriorate, and the extreme corruption of the mentioned mafia state with the enrichment and hubris of Orbán’s larger “dynasty” and oligarchy has become impossible to ignore for all. In addition, a new voting generation has grown up for whom living without autonomy is not an option, and their voice proved decisive.

The economic hardship is due not only to bad economic policies but also to the suspended – and therefore missing – financial resources from the European Union, as a result of the long-awaited change in the European Union’s attitude towards a Member State consequently defying the main European values: democracy, the rule of law, and protection of fundamental rights. After a decade of complicity, the EU using a value conditionality mechanism has frozen some 20 billion Euros in funds earmarked for Hungary over the government’s democratic backsliding and corruption. The idea was that in this way Hungarian people, 70% of whom support the EU, would realize that the autocratic regime was contributing to the deterioration of their living standards. Hence, one can argue that this was a suitable policy decision by the EU, and note that indirectly the election result can also be considered as a rejection of Orbán’s fight against the EU, especially among younger voters. Both young and old voters were supposed to be impressed by Trump’s support and Vice President J. D. Vance’s last-minute visit to Budapest right before election day – but rather than helping Fidesz, it appears to have hindered their electoral chances: the current autocratic and oligarchic tendencies in the US are clearly in parallel with the disliked tendencies in Hungary.

Fidesz’s fall is also due to the unprecedented rise of Péter Magyar, who owes his rapidly growing popularity primarily to his focus on the unsuccessful economic policies and corruption of his former party, Fidesz. By contrast, values such as democracy, rule of law, and fundamental rights received little attention. The same is true of issues like migration, national sovereignty, and LGBTQ-rights (for instance, he did not appear with the 300.000 people on the streets of Budapest protesting against the government’s ban of the Pride last June). On key foreign policy questions, he remained silent, and on Ukraine’s EU membership he took position close to Orbán’s.

In the Hungarian Parliament, Magyar refused any collaboration with the “old” opposition parties, distancing himself from any left/liberal ideas based on the conviction that his party can only beat Orbán on its own. His implicit promise to his voters was roughly this: first we get rid of Orbán, and then we can restore pluralism again. As a result of the current elections, besides the centrer-right Tisza Party, the far-right Fidesz, and the neo-Nazi Mi Hazánk (Our Homeland), there are neither leftist nor liberal voices represented in the Parliament. His calculation to beat Fidesz turned out to be correct, but one of first issues to be solved by the new legislature should be to restore political pluralism by changing the disproportional election system constructed by Fidesz.

Thanks to the exceptionally large popular support, the new Prime Minister has realized the importance of the pluralist composition of his government and has selected politicians with a variety of political and ideological backgrounds. Many of the new policy measures are also supportive of Ukraine and LGBTQ people. From the very beginning, Magyar is seriously committed to complying with the European Union liberal democratic values in order to receive the suspended funds back, which amounts to 4-5% of the Hungarian GDP. Therefore, already in his victory speech, he has pledged to change the illiberal constitution to comply with the EU’s rule of law requests. He has called on the heads of key state institutions – the President of the Republic, the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court, the State Audit Office, the National Competition Authority and the Chief State Prosecutor – to step down voluntarily.

As none of those officials has yet indicated any willingness to step down, the government will need to elaborate its short-term plans for the restoration of liberal democratic constitutionalism. On 1 June, after a short visit to the President, Prime Minister Magyar announced that within one month the government will submit an amendment to the Fundamental Law replacing him and the other “authoritarian enclaves.” There seems to be a consensus among constitutional scholars who support the renewal that the restoration must follow a two-tier process: starting with the necessary and quick amendments to the “illiberal” Fundamental Law, followed by a longer process of a new constitution-making.

Restoring Constitutional Democracy in the Short Run

In my view, even the first leg of the two-tier amendment process can have two phases: the adoption of the most urgent changes to the Fundamental Law, and a more systemic repeal of all its ideologically loaded provisions, found mostly in the National Avowal.

Among the urgent changes, on 20 May 2026, the Magyar government submitted the first amendment to the Parliament. One of the proposed changes is necessary to unfreeze Hungary’s €10.4 billion share of the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility, withheld over the violation of academic freedom through the “privatization” of public universities by the Orbán government. To this end, the proposed amendment aims to reclassify the controversial new forms of the 21 transformed public universities – called “public interest asset management foundations” (known as KEKVAs in Hungarian) – as part of “national wealth”, transferring them back to the state and allowing the government to dissolve the foundations altogether.

The other amendment can be considered rather symbolic. It limits the prime minister’s tenure to a maximum of eight years in office, in effect barring Viktor Orbán from returning to the role. Contrary to some scholarly criticism, the change does not represent retroactive legislation, as it concerns future conditions of holding the office of prime minister, but indeed its aim is plainly ad hominem – keeping Orbán out of public office, although it will prevent Magyar to serve more than one additional term after the current one. That said, it is true that in parliamentary systems it is far less crucial to limit the terms of the executive power than in presidential ones.

The most urgent issue in avoiding a blocking of the democratic transition is to remove the authoritarian enclaves. The achieved two-thirds majority enables Magyar’s party to change the Fundamental Law and the other cardinal laws requiring the qualified majority. However, it is disputed whether the mandate of incumbent high public officials can be terminated with retroactive effect. To be frank, the Orbán government did exactly the same in 2010, when it expelled the President of the Supreme Court and the members of the National Election Commission (including the author of this piece) by simply changing the names of their institutions – renaming them to Kúria and Hungarian Election Commission respectively – and appointing loyal replacements. While Orbán’s illiberal autocratic legalism violated the rule of law and served an arbitrary exercise of power, the new government aims to restore it. If this is to happen with deviations from the principle of the rule of law – such as the prohibition of retroactive legislation – these must be exceptional, temporary, serving a legitimate aim of reinstating constitutional democracy, proportional, and backed by broad public support.

Exploiting a Constitutional Moment

The societal support for the values of constitutionalism is equally important when replacing the illiberal Fundamental Law with a new liberal democratic constitution. One of the negative experiences of both the revolutionary 1989 and the counter-revolutionary 2011 constitution-making processes is that they were elitist acts, lacking any participatory elements – a factor that may have contributed to the subsequent fall of liberal democracy. Therefore, to achieve long-term democratic consolidation, the new government should start a cooperative effort by creating a diverse constituent power to draft a new constitution that emphasizes inclusivity over reliance on a mere two-thirds majority. This deliberative constitution-making process could help channel the current euphoria in the country into “constitutional enthusiasm”. As we know from Bruce Ackerman, this is needed for a constitutional moment – a juncture in history when constitutional change is driven by a particular mobilization and engagement of the demos, representing a transformative expression of popular sovereignty and a self-conscious act of consent by a majority of ordinary citizens. As András Sajó has argued, after 1989 there has not been such moment in Hungary, because there was no “constitutional enthusiasm” by the people, who first and foremost expected the transition to deliver a speedy increase in living standards. Orbán’s counter-revolution in 2010 was made easier by the fact that those expectations had been disappointed. However, the people have spoken, and Hungary has another chance to seize that moment.