Consider This from NPR - After the fall of the Orbán regime, can Hungary mend its damaged democracy?

Episode Date: August 16, 2026

Former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán ruled Hungary with an iron fist for 16 years. After he was unseated in a landslide election last April, many Hungarians wonder if the new government led by Peter Magyar can mend the deeply damaged democracy. This episode was produced and edited by Michael Levitt.Our interim executive producer is Courtney Dorning.For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at [e-mail] public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

It's consider this, where every day we go deep on one big news story. Today, democracy returns to Hungary. Back in April, I reported from Budapest to chronicle one of the country's most historic elections. Victor Orban, the longtime strongman leader who ruled Hungary with an iron fist for 16 years, was unseated in a landslide. The city erupted in celebration. Hungarians filled the streets, they sang, they danced, and we were left ostrichan. 18-year-old Sarah Chongerati voted for the very first time. She couldn't contain her excitement.

I'm really hopeful for the next one. And I really hope that it will be a better country for us. And I hope there will be no corruption. And I hope the media will be also better. And yeah, that's all. I'm just really happy. Consider this. What's happened to Hungary since then?

And how has the government of the new... newly elected Prime Minister Peter Madjar tried to reconstruct its democracy. From NPR, I'm Rob Schmitz. It's considered this from NPR. A couple of months ago, I went back to Budapest to see what has changed since that historic election in April. Incredible. I started my journey in Maria Aramete, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods overlooking Buddha, the hilly city district filled with castles and churches perched above the Danube.

And this is where I run into blogger Gazebop. He is wearing shorts and a backpack, and he's hiked a mile from the nearest bus stop. He just wanted to come here and see the project myself with my own eyes. Bob hiked all this way to see an abandoned construction site. Above us looms a 10-story crane that rotates with the wind. All around us is discarded equipment surrounding a half-built semi-circular modernist mansion made of concrete and steel. The size is really outstanding. and even in this district.

This half-built mansion belongs to Jula Baloch, one of the most infamous oligarchs of the former Orban regime. The 46-year-old is one of the wealthiest people in Hungary, with a reported net worth exceeding $300 million. He and his family divide their time between Budapest and Miami. He's also known to have a pension for extravagant supercars, including a Ferrari Testerosa and a Lamborghini Diablo. He became rich by turning his advertising company

into a propaganda machine for Orban and his Fidesz party. They scattered the country with billboards inciting hatred against any perceived threat to Orban. People like George Soros, Willa Demosryzelnsky, migrants, and the entire European Union, of which Hungary is a member. In return, Balosch received public contracts

worth nearly $3.5 billion, according to the Hungarian Watchdog Group, the corruption research center. Baloch's high-flying life came to a screeching halt. when his friend Victor Orban conceded the election on the night of April 12. Within weeks, Peter Majjar's new government froze Balos's bank account as part of a corruption investigation into his companies. Days later, a solemn, nervous Balos appeared on a television news program to defend himself.

The interviewer asked him if he had considered fleeing the country. Through tears, Balosch said, I was born in this country. I grew up here. My family is here, and I have no reason to leave. Balashe's half-built mansion has become a pilgrimage site for people like Gezaabab, who wants to understand the depth of corruption during Victor Orban's 16-year rule over the country. He was one of the heads of all this propaganda that was going on for such a long time in Hungary,

and he could make such a fortune out of this. Yeah. That's striking. It is striking. Bob isn't the only Hungarian in a bit of a daze from the excesses of Victor Orban's government. For many here, it feels like waking up to a world filled with possibilities for the new government.

In theory, they could even replace the Constitution. Stefania Capronche is former director of the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union. We sit down at a park bench in central Budapest, and she lays out Prime Minister Peter Magiard's priorities to reconstruct Hungary's democracy. It begins with money. What they want to do is fix some of the key aspects that hold back European Union funding. The European Union has frozen $20 billion worth of funding to Hungary

to punish Victor Orban's government for violating the EU's democratic principles. This is equal to more than 8% of Hungary's GDP. European Commission President Ursula Fondelain has vowed nearly all of these funds would be paid back if Madjar's government agreed on more than two dozen reforms by the end of this month. And then what they are proposing is a longer constitution-making process, a reconstitution, which will involve people, citizens, also civil society. Reconstitution? That's my wording.

In his first year as Prime Minister, Viktor Orban and his Fidesz party amended Hungary's constitution several times before overhauling the entire document, calling it the fundamental law. So does that mean then that they're going to scrap the Constitution that Orban basically rewrote? Yes, so the fundamental law that we now have as a constitution, it's really a one-party product. And it was amended already 15 times serving the political interest of Fides. Orban's redrafted constitution tweaked the justice system in the country's electoral process in order to keep Fidez and Orban in power, which made Majjar's victory in April and even bigger surprise.

I ask Abronche the question on many Hungarian minds since the election. Do you think Orban should go to prison? Yes, I think it's clear. He had a mandate for representing the whole country, and they not only stole a lot of money, but they also created so much hatred, so many people. So many of my friends, so many of my colleagues suffered real-life consequences because of the hate campaigns that they created,

that there's no doubt in my mind that he deserves that. One person who suffered real-life consequences from Orban's government is Lukash Saba, managing director of the newspaper Majjar Hong, Hungarian Voice. He gives me a tour of his magazine's newsroom. I mean, this is more or less an apartment, right? This is like an apartment. That was an old apartment. It's 120 square meter.

but it's enough for us. So we have to be modest because we don't have investors, we don't have money. We have to fit in small places, but it's cozy, let's say. It's cozy. When I last met Shaba more than a year ago, he was forced to print his weekly conservative news magazine in neighboring Slovakia because printers in Hungary were too scared of being shut down by Orban's government for printing it.

Back then, Shaba told me that being a journalist in Hungary had felt increasingly risky. We are not yet in Turkey because the journalists will be not jailed yet. We are not in Russia because nobody was falling out from the windows yet. But day by day, we are getting closer. Shaba could not get a single company to place advertisements in his paper. They were all too scared of the Orban government to do that. Now?

Now we can smell the window of change. In the last edition, we had eight different advertising, which doesn't happen. in our eight years of existence. And our journalists started to complain that they have no space to write article because of advertising. Shaba says he's looking forward to getting back to normal.

A normal way of communication with the government. So let our journalist in. Please give answers to our questions. And if we want an interview with somebody, please help us with an interview. That's the most important things for us as a journalist. It's a pretty basic demands, actually. The government under Prime Minister Majjar is also working on a return to normalcy.

The new parliament elected a new president, replacing an Orban appointee. Orban's prosecutor general resigned, and the Majar administration is moving forward with plans to limit prime ministers to just two terms in office. Orban served five terms. But mostly, as one Hungarian friend told me on the night of the election, the hope is to restore Hungary to what he called a boring. country. This episode was produced and edited by Michael Levin, and our interim executive producer is

Courtney Dorney. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Rob Schwitz.