Péter Magyar: The former loyalist who toppled Victor Orban

“Never before in the history of democratic Hungary have so many people voted — and no single party has ever received such a strong mandate,” said Peter Magyar, leader of the centre-right Tisza party, after they won the parliamentary elections in Hungary with a thumping two-thirds majority, defeating its far-right, Christian nationalist strongman Victor Orban and his Fidesz party, after 16 years of continuous rule.

Magyar’s Tisza party won 136 seats of the 199-member Hungarian Parliament while Mr. Orban won only 57 seats. This supermajority will help the 45-year-old lawyer-turned-politician reverse various laws bulldozed by the Orban administration on education, healthcare, and the economy as well as policies which compromised the independence of the judiciary and media freedoms. His takeover also signals a potential rebuilding of ties with the European Union.