The 2026 Hungarian national elections on April 12 have taken the world by surprise. Long-standing populist and stealth-autocrat prime minister Viktor Orbán and his party, FIDESZ, lost the election after 16 years in power to the opposition party TISZA, led by Péter Magyar, a former FIDESZ member. TISZA won by a landslide, winning 141 seats in the parliament out of 199, giving them a two-thirds supermajority capable of amending the constitution.

Although mostly acknowledged by international media as a change for the better regarding democracy, many outlets started describing Péter Magyar as a more centrist, but a populist politician, compared to the previous prime minister. When looking at his speech rhetoric and strong individual control over his party, he certainly shows a striking resemblance to Orbán and his populist agenda; however, when looking at a more defined and robust definition of populism, like that of Werner Müller, he and his party fail the definitive test of populism. In contrast to Orbán, Magyar rejects moral exclusivity, defends institutional pluralism, and seeks to restore constitutional checks and balances, rejecting the ideology of singular representation of all people.

According to the definition of populism by Müller described in his book „What is populism?”, a populist is defined mainly by two attributes: criticizing the elite and rejecting political pluralism. The FIDESZ government met both of these criteria. For multiple years, their most prominent anti-elitist campaign strategy was to paint the European Parliament as an evil institution trying to achieve hard control over European countries to force their liberal ideologies on the continent. Their campaign also consisted of many anti-pluralist claims, and they created legislation that was inherently anti-plural, like electoral reforms, which enlarged the proportion of mandates the biggest political party would win in parliament.

When looking at the TISZA party and Péter Magyar, through the lens of this definition, the differences become clear. Magyar and his party ran a strong anti-elitist campaign, criticizing the FIDESZ government for its corruption and authoritarian control over the country. However, Magyar’s speeches and the legislation his party implemented and plans to implement show a stark difference in the way TISZA views pluralism. Throughout the election campaign, Magyar highlighted the restoration of pluralism as an important task for his party, while their manifesto contained several pro-pluralist propositions, like the creation of a renewed electoral system which represents people more proportionally. One of his earliest campaign promises was the modification of the constitution to restrict any person from becoming prime minister for more than 2 electoral cycles (8 years), which was already put into law by the parliament, after only a few weeks in power. Moreover, under the TISZA government, the country also joined the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), putting more outside institutional checks on Hungary, and created a new independent democratic institution called the National Asset Recovery and Protection Office, which oversees public asset flow reports issues, and initiates proceedings by other government bodies, strengthening checks and balances.

Moral exclusivity was also an important factor in Orbán’s rhetoric, which strengthened his standing as a populist. He famously declared in 2002, after losing an election, that „the nation cannot be in opposition”, immediately excluding every person who voted for the winning party as not part of the nation. This kind of communication remained permanent in his speeches, claiming the representation of the nation for himself. Contrary to that, Magyar rejected this type of moral exclusivity. His rhetoric framed TISZA as a broad-tent coalition, addressing all types of voters, and requesting other opposition parties to abstain from this specific election, so that TISZA could grab more of the votes, win the election, and create an environment where multiple parties would be able to flourish.

Proponents of identifying Péter Magyar as a populist could argue that the strong centralization he created in his party, his reliance on massive rallies, and unmediated social media communication make him at least partially populist. However, these metrics overlook the historical context and also work with a weak and ambiguous definition of populism. Orbán’s stealth authoritarian regime captured and monopolized around 80% of the media landscape, while also spreading misinformation, propaganda, and fake news about TISZA and Magyar. Magyar’s unmediated mobilization was an electoral tactic of necessity in order to spread his words to the people, while also tackling constant pressure from FIDESZ-controlled media.

In conclusion, Hungary did not trade one populist for the other. Even though FIDESZ and TISZA, and their leaders, share some similarities in both policy and rhetoric, the loss of Orbán and the victory of Magyar can be seen as the outcasting of populism from government. This also teaches a broader lesson on how democratic restoration cannot be achieved from an ivory tower, but by disruptive, personalized mobilization. It is also important to keep in mind, however, that the new government in Hungary only started operating 5 months ago, and although so far they have delivered on some of their democratic renewal-related promises, only time will tell whether a deep institutional reform will take place, or just a softening of the borderline authoritarian system created by Orbán.