Sun, April 12, 2026
CNN World
CNN World
What to know
9 min ago
- BREAKING: Veteran Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has conceded defeat in a parliamentary election and congratulated Péter Magyar, leader of the opposition party Tisza and a former member of the ruling Fidesz party.
- Record turnout: Sunday’s election had the highest turnout in Hungary’s post-Communist history, officials said shortly before the polls closed, with almost 78% of eligible voters having cast their ballots.
- Trump ally: The nationalist, pro-Russian Orbán, in power for 16 years and seeking his fifth straight election win, was endorsed by US President Donald Trump and hailed as a model for the rest of Europe by Trump administration officials.
9 min ago
A closer look at incoming Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar
By Christian Edwards in Budapest, Hungary
Péter Magyar delivers a speech in Budapest, Hungary, in October 2025. Bernadett Szabo/Reuters
Incoming Hungarian prime minister Péter Magyar was growing up during Hungary’s democratic transition, he had a poster of Viktor Orbán – then a liberal anti-communist – pinned to his bedroom wall.
Today, Magyar, leader of the Tisza party, brought Orbán’s 16-year stint as Hungary’s prime minister to an end.
Just two years ago, Magyar was a member of Orbán’s Fidesz party, before he split from the party in a high-profile rupture.
Earlier that year, Orbán’s government was rocked by public furor after it emerged Hungary’s then president, Katalin Novák, had pardoned a former official convicted of helping to cover up the abuse of underaged boys at a children’s home. Judit Varga, Orbán’s justice minister at the time, was also involved in the pardon. Both women resigned.
Varga had previously been married to Magyar. In an explosive interview with Partizan, a Hungarian media outlet, Magyar accused Orbán of “hiding behind women’s skirts.” He also used the interview to share secrets he had gleaned from his proximity to government. “A few families own half the country,” he said.
Anti-corruption has been a major theme of Magyar’s campaign. He has described the image Orbán projects to the world – of the prime minister as the defender of national sovereignty against liberal ideology – as “sugar-coating” to “conceal the workings of the machinery of power and to acquire immense fortunes.”
The campaign also focused relentlessly on domestic, kitchen-table issues, from Hungary’s stagnating economy to its poor healthcare. While Orbán has campaigned mostly on issues of foreign policy, Magyar has said next to nothing about his stance on Russia’s war in Ukraine or Hungary’s relationship with the European Union.
Read more
8 min ago
Huge cheers at Tisza party headquarters after Orbán concedes defeat
By Christian Edwards in Budapest
Supporters of Peter Magyar, leader of the opposition Tisza party, hold up Hungarian flags, after the announcement of partial results of the parliamentary election, in Budapest, on Sunday. Leonhard Foeger/Reuters
All week, the Tisza supporters I have spoken to at rallies across Hungary have refused to allow themselves to consider what victory might feel like. Now, they know.
People are celebrating outside the Tisza party headquarters, on the banks of the Danube. There is champagne, hugs and tears.
András Petöcz, a writer and poet, said the feeling reminded him of being in Budapest in 1989 “when the Communist regime collapsed. It’s the same thing,” he told CNN.
“I was 30 years old when the Communist regime ended. It’s the same feeling – the same,” he said.
People at a local outdoor post-election watch party look at initial results being announced on a large screen television showing a regional district Tisza win following the closing of polling stations in Hungarian parliamentary elections on Sunday, in Budapest. Sean Gallup/Getty Images
With Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán conceding the election to opposition leader Péter Magyar’s Tisza party, the focus of Hungarian news media is trying to gauge the size of the party’s future majority.
The broadly pro-government Magyar Hírlap says Tisza could win as much as two thirds of the seats in the parliament, which would give the party a crucial constitutional majority.
Blikk, Hungary’s most popular tabloid newspaper which was acquired by pro-Orbán media group Indamedia last year, is also predicting Tisza to win, although its coverage is focusing mostly on the part of the vote counting that has been going well for Fidesz so far.
Hu.24, one of Hungary’s most widely read news website, is projecting Tisza to cross the magic two-thirds line, while the left-leaning Népszava says Tisza is leading by a “huge margin.”
28 min ago
Orbán concedes election defeat after 16 years in power
By Christian Edwards in Budapest
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán speaks to the media after he cast his ballot in Hungarian parliamentary elections on Sunday in Budapest. Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has conceded defeat in Hungary’s parliamentary election, ending his 16 years in power.
In a speech at his Fidesz party headquarters, Orbán said the defeat is painful, but that the result was clear. He said he had congratulated the opposition Tisza party on its victory.
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