Abel Boyar

What happened today was a truly historical moment in Hungary's political history.

Record number of people turned out at today's election.

The turnout was close to 80%, which historically is a huge number, 10 percentage point higher than in most previous elections.

What that means in practice is that Viktor Orbán's grip on power in the last 16 years seems to be over, leading the way for Petr Magyar, his opposition challenger.

to form a new government with a two-thirds majority, which gives him basically free reigns to undertake sweeping constitutional changes.

And what we are hoping at this point is that he will use that to re-democratize the country.

Elements of the government, that's hard to say, but he will definitely, for the time being, for the foreseeable future, he will definitely control some of the state institutions, as long as the new government, with their two-thirds majority, is able and willing to dismantle them.

How they will do it, in what time frame they will do it, and what exactly that means, what institutions they will be able to change, that's a big open question, but that's the agenda, that's one of the centerpieces of Peter Mallorca's agenda, and that's what most people who voted for him are waiting for.

Well, that's the million-dollar question.

In the short run, for sure, in many key economic sectors, such as construction, they have a key role in running the economy.

And overtaking those businesses with extremely intricate business networks all the way through the supply chains is not going to happen overnight.

So to answer your question, in the short run, they will definitely play a key role in the Hungarian economy, yes.

Well, to answer the question, you have to distinguish between the legal constitutional power, which now he seems to have a free rein to use it, and as you said before, reverse or undertake new changes in the constitution, and the actual political power.

And that's a big open question, because it's one thing to have the legal means to implement these legal changes.

Another thing is whether he can do so while preserving the sort of political support and electoral coalition that stands behind him.

What we should first watch for is the first policy measures that they will try to... OK, first of all, transfer of power.

It looks like it's going to happen, peaceful transfer of power.

Seems like it's going to happen.

Yeah, it seems obvious from tonight.

But the next step should be what are the first policies that they will propose to introduce.