Parliamentary elections were held in Hungary on 12 April 2026 to elect all 199 members of the National Assembly. It was the 10th parliamentary election and the highest-turnout election since Hungary's transition to democracy in 1990. The incumbent Fidesz–KDNP government of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was defeated in a landslide by the opposition Tisza Party, led by MEP and former Fidesz member Péter Magyar, ending the 16-year Orbán era. The Tisza Party won 141 seats out of the 199 in the National Assembly, enough for a two-thirds supermajority, the legislative threshold to amend the Fundamental Law. In so doing, Tisza won both the largest number of votes and the largest percentage of seats that a Hungarian political party has ever won in a free election.
Orbán, the longest-serving prime minister in Hungarian history, is the leader of Fidesz, variously described as a national-conservative, Christian nationalist or far-right party with authoritarian and illiberal tendencies. In an alliance with the Christian Democratic People's Party, Fidesz was seeking a fifth consecutive term (sixth overall). Magyar is the leader of Tisza, a conservative centre-right party, which ran on a pro-European, anti-corruption, centrist, and populist platform. The only other party to cross the electoral threshold was the ultranationalist and far-right Our Homeland Movement led by László Toroczkai. Most of the other parties pulled out of the campaign in order to prevent Fidesz from taking advantage of vote-splitting.
In the lead-up to the election, analysts described the election as the most important one in the European Union in 2026 and a referendum on whether Hungary would continue to drift towards authoritarianism and Russia or change course towards liberal democracy and the EU. There were fraud accusations before the elections by both major parties. Results reflected independent polling showing Tisza with a clear lead, while pro-government pollsters projected a Fidesz win. Orbán conceded defeat on election night and congratulated Magyar, as did various international leaders. Magyar's victory was described as a victory for the EU, and as a loss for Russia and global far-right movements.
According to constitutional practice, the president of Hungary grants the person most likely to command a majority in the National Assembly the first chance to form the incoming government. President Tamás Sulyok met with all three parliamentary party and alliance leaders—Magyar, Orbán, and Toroczkai—on 15 April, three days after the election, and announced he would propose Magyar as Prime Minister when the legislature convened. The National Assembly convened on 9 May and elected Magyar prime minister.
Background Hungary under Viktor Orbán
Orbán, the president of Fidesz since 2003 (he was previously the party leader from 1993 to 2000) and the co-president of the Fidesz–KDNP alliance formed in 2005, served as Prime Minister of Hungary from 1998 to 2002 and again from 2010 onwards, making him the longest tenured leader in the European Union. His government promoted Christian nationalism. During his rule, Hungary underwent major constitutional, political, and institutional changes that led many observers to describe it as a hybrid regime, or illiberal democracy, that blends democracy with authoritarianism as it moved away from the rule of law. In a 2014 speech, Orbán himself described Hungary under his rule as an "illiberal state". Initially a liberal during the 1990s and early 2000s, he eventually evolved his politics closer to the radical right and the far-right, being widely considered one of the leaders of the global far-right.
The 2026 election was scheduled for 12 April, the same day of the successful 2003 Hungarian EU membership referendum. The major opposition came from Magyar and his Tisza Party, a centre-right and pro-European political party. Politico Europe described it as the most important election in the EU in 2026, while DW News described the election as a referendum on whether Hungary would continue to drift towards authoritarianism and Russia or change course towards liberal democracy and the EU. Some analysts argued that Magyar had leaned into some core continuities with Fidesz—including the use of nationalist and populist rhetoric, skepticism about Ukraine's accession to the EU, and rejection of the EU migration and asylum pact—and that a Magyar government was likely to continue these policies. Prior to the election, an analysis by Eulytix of Tisza Party's voting record in the European Parliament showed that "while Tisza Party MEPs are mostly aligned with pro-EU forces, they also engage in tactical alignment with Fidesz on politically sensitive issues such as Ukraine, agriculture and migration."
2022 election
On 3 April 2022, with 54.13% of the popular vote, Fidesz–KDNP received the highest vote share by any party or alliance since 1990. It won two-thirds of the seats for the fourth time. The United for Hungary alliance suffered a heavy defeat and was shortly after dissolved; its members sat in separate political groups in the National Assembly. From other minor parties, only Our Homeland Movement reached the threshold for entry, while Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog Party, Solution Movement, and Party of Normal Life did not. The European Parliament views Hungary as a "hybrid regime of electoral autocracy" since 2022 and considers Hungary according to Article 7.1 of the Treaty on European Union in clear risk of a serious breach of the Treaty on European Union. In January 2024, a majority of MEPs voted for a resolution demanding that the Council of the European Union consider that Hungary be stripped of its EU voting rights under Article 7 of the Treaty.
Rise of Tisza Party
On 2 February 2024, it was revealed that President Katalin Novák had granted a pardon in April 2023 to a criminal involved in a pedophilia case. The Novák scandal resulted in her resignation and that of former justice minister Judit Varga, who had countersigned the pardon. Not long after, Magyar (Varga's ex-husband) posted on Facebook that he would resign from all of his government-related positions, stating that the past few years had made him realize that the idea of a "national, sovereign, bourgeois Hungary" stated as the goal of Orbán's rule was in fact a "political product" serving to obscure massive corruption and transfers of wealth to those with the right connections.
On 15 March 2024, Magyar, despite initially refusing to participate in politics, held a rally attended by tens of thousands in Budapest at which he announced the formation of a new political party. According to polling conducted that month, around 15% of voters claimed they were "certain or highly likely" to vote for Magyar if he ran for office. On 10 April 2024, Magyar announced his bid to run in both the European Parliament and the General Assembly of Budapest with the then unknown Tisza Party, which finished in second place with nearly 30% of votes, the highest number and percentage of votes by any non-Fidesz party since the 2006 Hungarian parliamentary election. Following the 2024 European Parliament election in Hungary and the 2024 Budapest Assembly election, the strengthening of the Tisza Party continued and according to the independent/opposition-aligned polls, by the end of the year it had become the most popular political party in Hungary, or at least a close competitor to Fidesz, thus overturning the continuous dominance of ruling parties that had lasted since the Őszöd speech came to light.
The Tisza Party selected 103 of its 106 future candidates for the election in a two-round primary late 2025. The party put forward 3 nominees in each district and in the first round all Tisza Sziget members above the age of 16 could vote. Voting took place via a modified Borda count. In the second round, voting was opened also to all resident citizens above 18 who could vote for either of the two advancing candidates. Winners were announced on 28 November 2025.
Collapse of the previous opposition Prior to the presidential pardon scandal, the Democratic Coalition was considered as the strongest opposition party; its leading member Klára Dobrev even formed a one-party shadow cabinet in September 2022, which clearly indicated the role of the main challenger against the other opposition parties; however, public opinion polls in the two years after the 2022 parliamentary election measured the party's support at a maximum of 20%. Except for the Momentum Movement, Our Homeland Movement and Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog Party, the opposition parties – Hungarian Socialist Party, Jobbik, Dialogue – The Greens' Party and LMP – Hungary's Green Party – usually did not reach the threshold according to public opinion polls. The two years after the 2022 election were characterized by frozen party relations and political apathy, similar to much of the Orbán era, which consisted of a dominant ruling Fidesz–KDNP and, far behind, the medium and small opposition parties competing with each other for a non-growing bloc of opposition voters. Moreover, the governance by decree, introduced due to the permanent "state of emergency" due to the COVID-19 pandemic and later the Russo-Ukrainian war, significantly eroded the political significance of the parliament.
The appearance and rapid advance of the Tisza Party completely rearranged the political party structure. A few days after Magyar announced his intention to found a party on 15 March 2024, the not-yet-formed political formation was polled at 15%. As a response, the Democratic Coalition concluded an electoral alliance with the Hungarian Socialist Party and the Dialogue – The Greens' Party on 28 March 2024. They agreed that the three parties will run on a unified Social Democrat–Green list, called DK–MSZP–Dialogue Alliance, in the upcoming European Parliament and local elections. The European Parliament election on 9 June 2024 was a complete disaster for the opposition parties; only DK–MSZP–Dialogue Alliance and Our Homeland Movement obtained mandates besides Fidesz–KDNP and Tisza Party, while the remaining parties – Momentum Movement, Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog Party, Jobbik, LMP – Hungary's Green Party, Second Reform Era Party, Everybody's Hungary People's Party and Solution Movement – did not. The Tisza Party's performance was characterized by the media as a challenge to the ruling political elite. The parliamentary opposition was mostly able to retain its seats in the local elections because the newly organized Tisza Party did not participate in that election – with the exception of Budapest. Klára Dobrev dissolved her shadow cabinet on the next day and the DK–MSZP–Dialogue Alliance also ceased to exist in October 2024. While the Tisza Party gradually caught up with Fidesz–KDNP during 2025, and then left it behind in the polls, the parliamentary opposition parties completely eroded.