520. Orbán Ousted: Is The Tide Turning Against Far-Right Populism?
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Hi there. Welcome to The Rest Is Politics with me, Alistair Campbell. Rawley's still away. He's back in action tomorrow, but I felt we couldn't really let the events of the last 24 hours pass without reflecting on just how big a moment this is. The end of Viktor Orban's rule of Hungary. 16 years, four terms, enough time to create what many people have called a mafia state, and where Orbán had become so much more than the leader of a country of fewer than 10 million people. He'd become a symbol of far-right, kleptocratic, authoritarian nationalism. Which, because Donald Trump is back in the White House pursuing much the same agenda and often citing Orban as an inspiration, many had assumed was the winning formula for modern politics and modern campaigns.
Orban has lost, and he's lost big. So big that he had no option but to throw in the towel long before all the votes were even counted. But he's not the only loser. Trump lost. Vladimir Putin lost. Milley, Maloney, Netanyahu, plenty of fellow right-wing leaders broke that basic rule of not interfering in other countries' elections to say, vote or ban. And they lost too, because in so doing, they put themselves and their politics on the ballot alongside him. And that's why this election is not just about Hungary, which is a landlocked country. that could fit inside Indiana, a single American state. It's seven times smaller than Texas and 180 times smaller than Russia. This is about what it says about what happens when the politics and policies of far-right nationalism are actually exposed to real challenge and real scrutiny.
and it shows they can be beaten. Now, Trump went further than most. He sent Secretary of State Marco Rubio to campaign for Orban, and then the vital final week, he sent Vice President J.D. Vance, who seems to have been as effective at driving up the Orban vote as he was at leading the talks in Islamabad to end the war with Iran. That guy is turning out to be quite a loser. On election day itself, Trump and his family and friends, who, like Orban's friends and family, are getting very rich on the back of their guy being in power, posted relentlessly on social media, urging Hungarians to vote Orban to have a direct line to the White House. And guess what? The Hungarians queued from dawn, voted in record numbers, 80% turnout, to say, no thank you Trump, no thank you Musk, no thank you Mr Vance, take your interference elsewhere.
What was it President Zelensky said in our interview that was out earlier this week? I'm not sure sending JD is a good idea for Orban. Well, how right he was. As for Putin, he sent in money to burn and agents galore. Where once the Kremlin enemy to be plastered all over Orban's election posters was George Soros, now it was President Zelensky and President Ursula von der Leyen. Anyone in Budapest in recent weeks would have thought that they, not Orban and Magyar, were the candidates.
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