Viktor Orbán could call for the election to be annulled if the opposition wins. Romanian analyst from Great Britain: “They could be inspired by us”
Viktor Orbán could ask for the annulment of the elections, in case of a victory of the opposition, believes political scientist Cristian Nițoiu (Loughborough University, Great Britain). In desperation, the Hungarian prime minister could resort to the solution used in the Romanian elections in 2024.
Viktor Orban at a UDMR congress, in Romania. PHOTO: Inquam / Simion Tataru
All eyes are on Hungary, where the election campaign entered the last hundred meters, before the elections on Sunday, April 12. For the first time in years, the opposition seems to be starting with the first chance. Péter Magyar, former colleague of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in the Fidesz party, currently leader of Tisza, the main opposition political formation, wants to take power.
Even so, the survey results are rather contradictory. Market research by sociologists close to Tisza shows that the opposition party would be ahead by 8 to 10 percentage points. In contrast, polls by Fidesz allies, such as the Nézőpont Institute and the Center for Fundamental Rights, show a lead for Orbán and his party.
Nițoiu: Both camps play “dirty”
According to one of the most recent surveys carried out by the sociological and political analysis center Iránytű Intézet, Tisza would get 41% of the votes, compared to only 34%, as Fidesz would have. However, as could be seen in recent years in Romania as well, these polls often differ from the actual results of the elections, so surprises are by no means excluded in Hungary either.
“Adevărul” addresses the subject of the elections in the neighboring country with political scientist Cristian Nițoiu, professor of political sciences at Loughborough University, in Great Britain. In his opinion, the Hungarian elections are open to any outcome and even if many polling houses insist on Tisza's victory, the dice have not yet been cast.
“It will be very interesting to see how this election plays out. I think we are on a bit of a knife's edge at the moment, and when I say that I mean the desperation with which the Orbán regime is acting. I also recently saw the news coming out of Serbia about an alleged attack on the Balkan gas network. Hungary gets about 60-70% of its gas needs through that pipeline. And Orbán immediately came in and said he would put all the gas networks under military control from the territory of Hungary”, says Nițoiu.
Viktor Orbán's despair is given by the situation in which he finds himself in some polls, where his political opponent has moved ahead. But the opposition is also resorting to all means, at a time when the battle for Hungary is life and death.
“Orbán's strategists are somewhat desperate. I would say that they are trying to create the context or the image in which Ukraine would fight to some extent against the interests of Hungary and that the Orbán regime is the only one that can face and oppose the, they say, petty interests of Ukraine. I also saw from the other side how the conversations of the Hungarian foreign minister with Lavrov were made public. Obviously, the fact that such conversations are made public two weeks before the elections shows that the intention is, to a large extent, to influence those elections”,
says the analyst.
How Orban could use the cancellation of the elections in Romania
If Hungary is apparently headed for an opposition victory, surprises are by no means out of the question. As in Romania, where the polls did not reflect what was going to happen at the polls, in the last election, the final results may contradict everything that is now known about the balance of power between power and opposition. And that's not all. In the event of a defeat, Viktor Orbán would have one more solution to fall back on.
Cristian Nițoiu shows that the cancellation of the elections in Romania, in 2024, created a precedent that Viktor Orbán can now take advantage of. The Hungarian leader could very well, in case of failure, claim that the election was massively influenced by occult forces outside the country.
The anti-Orbán rhetoric from Brussels and major European chancelleries now fits the head of the Hungarian government like a glove and would backfire on the opposition, which would be the beneficiary of massive Western support. Support that Viktor Orbán can say, even without presenting concrete evidence, that he would have exceeded certain limits and would have entered into what it means to intervene in the internal affairs of Hungary and that he would have influenced the outcome of the elections.
In fact, the idea of interventions by Brussels and the powerful countries of Western Europe, Germany and France, has already been launched by the US vice president, JD Vance. In his support visit to Budapest, where he appeared next to Viktor Orbán, the second most important man in the United States directly reproached the Europeans for interfering in the Hungarian elections.
“What happened in this country, in the middle of this election campaign, is one of the worst examples of foreign interference in an election that I have ever seen or read about.” JD Vance charged.
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This could mean that Viktor Orbán does not rule out in any way the cancellation of the elections, as happened in neighboring Romania.
“If we remember the discussions that existed in Romania about influencing the elections by certain foreign actors, maybe the Orbán regime is seriously considering doing the same. It could take inspiration from us and cancel the elections if it does not win them. I would say that it can invoke even greater external interference than we have seen in the case of Romania. I would go further and say that it would be very likely that the Orbán regime would take the example of Romania if it loses the elections. To cancel them. To try to use legal means to cancel the election. But I don't know yet if they will win anyway, without resorting to this.”points out Nițoiu.
What would change if the opposition won
In essence, Hungary will not change much, even if Péter Magyar were to win the elections, believes Cristian Nițoiu. The country's economy is stable, inflation of 1.8% is almost 5 times lower than in Romania, and foreign investors have always pampered Hungary. The big investors in Hungary come from the West, mainly from Germany, but an important flow of investments has also come from China in recent years. At the same time, beyond the discourse that separates them, and beyond their enmity, Viktor Orbán and Péter Magyar have common political origins and have long been allies.
“He was part of Fidesz, actually, until a few years ago, when he fell out with Viktor Orbán. So they are not that different. And I think the public opinion in Hungary knows this very well. Many will vote for Péter Magyar because they are fed up, they don't want Orbán anymore, but people are mostly aware that a big change will not happen even if the opposition wins.” claims the expert.
If the domestic situation of the country will not change dramatically, in case of a success of the opposition, the same cannot be said about the foreign policy. Beneficiary of massive support, at least at the declarative and image level, from Brussels, Péter Magyar will bring Hungary closer to the line promoted by the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. This after Budapest has been the “rebel” of the European Union in recent years.
“If Orbán is no longer in power, I think that Hungary will no longer postpone the implementation of that loan to Ukraine. That is, even if he continues to be harsh towards Ukraine, Péter Magyar will thus respond to the requests from Brussels.” explains Cristian Nițoiu.
The relationship with Ukraine would remain complicated even if Magyar wins
But, even if it collaborates with Brussels and stops opposing the policy promoted here, Hungary will not turn into a friend of Ukraine overnight. Magyar will, of course, agree that the European Union should massively support Ukraine financially, but this does not mean that Budapest will have a benevolent attitude towards this country.
“It is very unlikely that certain things will change in relation to Ukraine, because there are some structural conditions there. And we know that there is a very strong Hungarian community in the Uzhhorod region in the south-west of Ukraine. And the state propaganda in Hungary in recent years has been very virulent in sanctioning how, for example, from their point of view, ethnic Hungarians have been sent to the front in a deliberate way to weaken the unity of the community Hungarians from there. And given the ethnic sensitivities in Hungary, such messages had and still have a great emotional impact. That's why I don't see how and who could, at the moment, change this narrative and the attitude that the Hungarians have towards each other Ukraine, but I saw that even in relation to Romania they did not really exist, maybe with the exception of the declaration of a day of the Romanian language by Kiev”, says Cristian Nițoiu.
Who is Cristian Nițoiu?
Cristian Nițoiu is a researcher and lecturer at Loughborough University in London. Nițoiu's research focuses mainly on the foreign policy of Russia and that of the European Union, along with the relationship between democracy and the foreign policy of states. The book “EU Foreign Policy Analysis: Democratic Legitimacy, Media, and Climate Change”, published by the famous publishing house Palgrave, in New York, established him as an important political scientist not only at the European level, and his subsequent books analyze the evolution towards an aggressive foreign policy in Putin's third term as president of Russia and the relations between the EU and Russia, as well as the changes that accession to the European Union produced in Romania's foreign policy.
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He has taught courses in International Relations Theory, Diplomacy, Russian and European Foreign Policy, BRICS in World Politics, Political Communication, Regional Politics and Society, and Social Science Philosophy. He has edited a series of special issues analyzing the rise of strategic thinking and geopolitics in EU foreign policy and Russia's influence on the development of foreign policy in Central Asia and the post-Soviet space.
