On April 3rd, 2022, after polls predicted he would win by a 5-point margin, Viktor Orbán and his party, Fidesz, secured their fourth consecutive election victory with a supermajority in parliament, winning by 20 percentage points. This is not an example of a polling error but rather a pattern of victories accelerated by a series of autocratic assaults on the electoral system in Hungary, characterized as a constitutional coup. Since Fidesz’s initial supermajority in 2010, Viktor Orbán has systematically subverted democratic norms and undermined Hungarian democracy by rewriting the constitution and manipulating elections to maintain a supermajority.
What makes Orbán so dangerous is how he eroded democracy in Hungary. Unlike demagogues who draw their authority from hostile coups or populist movements, Orbán simply uses the frameworks of the law. His ability to shape institutions and electorates has given him unprecedented powers in what can still be considered a democracy, and he continues to mold the game in his favor.
Orbán is a clear model for “stealth authoritarianism” and represents a new archetype of demagogues. “Stealth authoritarianism”, a phrase coined by Ozan Varol, describes a backslider who slowly cuts at the fabric of democracy behind closed doors. Given Hungary’s legal structure, it was easier for Orbán to consolidate power through gradual changes in the law and the constitution than to do so through military force. Orbán is not necessarily dismantling democracy: there are still free and fair elections, and opposition parties are allowed to participate. However, the democracy that remains is a shred of what it used to be and a tiny piece of what it could be.
Additionally, Orbán’s highly successful stealth authoritarianism through legal means poses a greater threat to other democracies that want to follow suit. Viktor Orbán is constantly cited by United States conservatives such as Tucker Carlson and JD Vance as the model for democracy and has worked extensively with the Trump administration. In the latest U.S. election cycle, Orbán spoke at the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) where he denounced LGBTQ+ rights, attacked the “woke” movement, and excitedly endorsed Trump for the presidency.
Orbán essentially redefined what democratic erosion can be. Not only does he curtail the media and restrict civil liberties, but Orbán has mastered the art of rigging the system. He has molded a state with the veil of a democracy that functions as an autocracy, using the gavel instead of a gun to entrench himself into the government and ensure he never leaves. Orbán has demonstrated to the world how demagogues can manipulate the legal systems of a nation to backslide immensely, and has created a playbook that others will surely follow.
Orbán’s rise to power and consistent sweeping victories do not occur in a vacuum; in fact, Fidesz’s first win was simply a product of an already broken electoral system. After the Soviet occupation, the Hungarian political elites were faced with creating a multiparty electoral system, but because none of the political leaders knew how their party would fare at the polls, the resulting election law was void of mechanisms to ensure that seat distribution would match the distribution of party votes. This disproportionality was clear in 2010, with Fidesz winning 52% of the popular vote, but securing above a two-thirds majority in parliament.
Once Orbán secured 68% of the seats in parliament, he began instituting unchecked constitutional changes through legal means. His first amendment was to remove barriers to rewriting the constitution, revising the four-fifths majority needed to rewrite the constitution, and unveiling a new one after just 9 days of debate. Second, Orbán cut the size of parliament in half. Although this was a welcome change, it opened the doors for extreme gerrymandering, something that Orbán was able to achieve with his new constitution.
Unsurprisingly, the new electoral map was drawn up in secret, as Fidesz worked meticulously to ensure its longevity and grip on Hungary, and the resulting districts were proof of this. If in the next election cycle Fidesz and the opposition-left won an equal number of the popular vote, Fidesz would come out with 10 more seats: a majority. Most importantly, this rigged system was created through legal processes enumerated in the constitution, so, regardless of when the constitution was written and who wrote it, actions taken using its provisions were legal.
In preparation for the 2014 election, Orbán and Fidesz continued rewriting the constitution and modifying election laws and provisions to assure a supermajority using a classic method of division: eliminating runoff elections. Essentially, runoff elections acted as a second round that allowed broad coalitions to consolidate power and compete with larger parties. By removing runoffs, Orbán devised an electoral system in which a party with less than 50% of the votes can prevail, limiting ideological diversity and inclusivity.
The new constitution further blocked opposition parties from entering parliament as Orbán unceasingly rewrote the constitution and invented new laws that disadvantaged small, left-leaning parties. Parties were forced to meet quotas on which districts they had to run candidates in, making them compete with each other to simply remain separate parties. Furthermore, combined parties required 5% more of the national vote per number of combined parties to enter parliament. These new laws culminated in a resounding victory for Fidesz in 2014 and 2018, despite attempts from a semi-unified opposition.
Although attempts at parliamentary control from a unified opposition failed in 2018, Orbán felt their influence grow and, again, adapted the law to work in his favor. In November 2021, Orbán legalized “voter tourism”, allowing voters to register to vote in any district in the country, regardless of where they live. This, coupled with preexisting laws Orbán created to give “near abroad” Hungarians the right to vote, gave Fidesz the ability to import voters and further cemented Fidesz’s hold on Hungary.
Most recently, the 2022 election left the opposition disorganized and fragmented. By employing “voter tourism”, Orbán has successfully been able to crush dissent from any opposition coalition. Now, Orbán has a significant supermajority and can continue to modify the rules of the game and keep himself in power. Opposition leaders are allotted little time to speak, cannot introduce bills or amendments, and have no realistic chance at defeating Fidesz.
Your portrait of Orbán as the patron saint of “legalistic autocracy” is persuasive, but it risks overstating both the novelty of his playbook and the inevitability of his victories. Three clarifications complicate the story.
First, Hungary’s mixed-member system was indeed disproportional in 2010, yet the gerrymander that followed did not invent Fidesz’s supermajority out of thin air. Political scientist Miklós Bánkuti shows that even with pre-2011 boundaries, a fragmented left would still have yielded a Fidesz majority—just shy of two-thirds. Orbán’s cartography insulated his advantage, but polarization and opposition disunity were pre-existing conditions that legal tweaks merely froze in place. Blaming constitutional engineering alone can let rival elites escape responsibility for their chronic inability to offer a coherent post-socialist program.
Second, the regime’s legalism has limits: When electoral math looked risky in 2019, Fidesz lost Budapest and ten other cities despite the tilted field. Local power has become an incubator of alternative media and patronage networks, underscoring that even a captured national parliament cannot prevent islands of pluralism. Recent EU rule-of-law conditionality—which finally links billions in cohesion funds to judicial independence—magnifies the bargaining power of those municipal enclaves. Stealthy authoritarians depend on outside cash; Brussels’s slow-motion pressure shows that external veto players can still raise the cost of defection from democratic baselines.
Third, exporting the “Hungary model” to the United States is harder than Tucker Carlson supposes. Orbán’s toolbox (unicameral legislature, single-party cabinet, pliant constitutional court) exploits institutional features the U.S. federal system lacks. A president cannot gerrymander the Senate or rewrite the Constitution by supermajority statute. State courts, decentralized election administration, and staggered terms diffuse power in ways that frustrate a Hungarian-style blitz.
Orbán proves that incremental legal changes can entrench dominance, but the counter-lesson is equally salient: Fragmented oppositions, complacent EU leaders, and underfunded watchdogs enabled his rise. Fixing those vulnerabilities—rather than yearning for an impossible procedural bulletproofing—is the most durable antidote to stealth authoritarianism.
The situation with Victor Orban’s several consecutive election wins is the perfect example of democratic erosion. Although Hungary is a democracy, Victor Orban has used tactics such as rewriting the Constitution of Hungary in order to be elected. He has also rigged elections. The democratic system is letting the people of Hungary down. I don’t feel that the constitution of any country should be rewritten by anyone. Orban has been the leader of his political mainly since 1993. This party has a 2/3 majority, and this weakens checks and balancing. I feel that the country of Hungary should totally revamp their voting system in order to prevent voter fraud.