“I never back down”
Despite electoral defeat: Orbán should continue to lead Fidesz party
June 13, 2026 – 9:51 p.mReading time: 2 minutes
Viktor Orbán lost the parliamentary election in Hungary by a landslide. However, his Fidesz party re-elects him as leader – with an overwhelming majority.
Despite his defeat in April’s parliamentary elections, Hungary’s former prime minister Viktor Orbán remains leader of his right-wing nationalist party Fidesz. At a party conference in Budapest, 729 delegates voted for him, none against him and eight abstained. His mandate as party leader is limited to one year. It is time for the “younger generation” to take the lead, said the 63-year-old in a speech at the party conference.
- After the change of power in Hungary: Magyar settles accounts with Orban
Orbán also admitted that he was to blame for the election defeat. He listed ten reasons for this, including that the allegations of corruption made by the opposing party Tisza during the election campaign had not been contradicted.
Orban wants to make Fidesz fit for the opposition
By this fall, he wants to strengthen Fidesz through a reorganization at the grassroots level to such an extent that it can work efficiently as an opposition party. “I will never back down,” emphasized Orbán. Fidesz also elected four new vice presidents.
The political whiz Peter Magyar won the parliamentary election on April 12th by a landslide. His Tisza party achieved a two-thirds majority in parliament, enabling it to fundamentally restructure the country’s politics, including constitutional changes. This marked the end of the 16-year era of the right-wing populist Orbán. He was Prime Minister from 1998 to 2002 and then from 2010.
Opponents accused him of creating a hybrid system of rule with autocratic elements, dismantling the rule of law in Hungary and undermining democracy. The European Union (EU) therefore froze billions of euros in funding. Orbán’s pro-Russian and anti-Ukraine stance also made the country an outsider in the EU.
