'He's a genius:' Viktor Orbán's career and the loyalty that persists after his defeat

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BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Before losing in an earthquake election on Sunday to bring an end to his 16-year rule, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was the dominant force in Hungary's political life for two decades, commanding the loyalty and admiration of millions.

The European Union’s longest-serving leader and one of its biggest antagonists, he took a long road from his early days as a liberal, anti-Soviet firebrand to the Russia-friendly nationalist admired by the global far right today.

Though Orbán was defeated in a landslide by the center-right Tisza party and its leader, the pro-European reformer Péter Magyar, many of his followers still see him as one of the greatest leaders in Hungary's history, and he retains a significant base of support — more than 2.3 million people cast ballots for his nationalist-populist Fidesz party.

Standing out among Orbán's believers is Ákos Szilágyi, one of the prime minister's most prominent and visible backers. The 61-year-old Szilágyi is frequently seen in the front row of Orbán's rallies and marches, and has gained notoriety in Hungary for the colorful T-shirts he designed depicting Orbán as “the leader of Europe.”

“I'm not a Fidesz supporter ... I’m an Orbánist,” Szilágyi told The Associated Press in an interview in Budapest two days after the election. “Hungarians rarely get a man like him. You may love him or hate him, but I think everyone acknowledges that he’s a genius.”

Beloved by many older and more rural Hungarians and reviled by detractors, Orbán has emerged as the country's most consequential leader since its transition to democracy at the end of the Cold War.

Born in 1963, Orbán grew up in a modest household in rural Felcsút, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) outside Budapest. A gifted student and avid soccer fan, he studied law and later went to Oxford to study political science under a scholarship awarded by a foundation run by George Soros — the Hungarian-born financier that Orbán would later frame as the country's most sinister bogeyman.

In 1988, Orbán co-founded Fidesz, originally a liberal, anti-communist youth party. The following year as a 26-year-old law student, he gave a fiery speech before tens of thousands, demanding Soviet troops leave Hungary — a bold move during the waning days of the Communist era.

After first entering parliament in 1990 as head of the Fidesz caucus, he became one of Europe's youngest-ever prime ministers when he won a national election in 1998 at the age of 35. But as Hungary's political dynamics changed and other liberal parties emerged, he began steering Fidesz to the right, transforming it into a vehicle for increasingly nationalist conservatism.

Many observers view the election in 2002, when he lost to Hungary's Socialist party, as a turning point in Orbán's approach to power. Speaking to Fidesz members afterward, he set the agenda for major changes that he would introduce once back in office.

“We've only got to win once, but we've got to win big,” he said.

It took eight years of leading the opposition in parliament, but that big win finally came. Orbán rode discontent over the fallout from the 2008 global financial crisis, as well as scandal and mismanagement by the Socialist government, to return as prime minister in 2010. Fidesz won a two-thirds majority in parliament.

It marked a turning point. With its overwhelming mandate, Fidesz set to work reshaping Hungary by unilaterally writing a new constitution, rerigging the electoral system and stacking the courts.

Meanwhile, Orbán began siphoning public contracts, largely financed by the EU, into companies owned by loyalists. Those loyalists in turn bought up hundreds of media outlets and forced others into closure. By the end of the decade, it was estimated that Fidesz and its allies controlled up to 80% of Hungary's private media market.

Using the power and resources of the state, Orbán also has transformed public media into a mouthpiece for his party, and spent billions on state-funded communication — billboards, ads and letters to households — to boost his narratives. Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders has called him a press freedom “predator.”

Despite the EU and international watchdogs sounding the alarm — the European Parliament declared Hungary an “electoral autocracy” in 2022 — Orbán's supporters praised him as a defender of Christian values and national sovereignty in the face of globalization, mass migration and what he describes as an oppressive EU.

Appearing to revel in disrupting EU decision-making, Orbán built border fences and enacted harsh immigration and asylum policies, casting migrants and refugees as part of a globalist ploy to "replace" Europe's white population.

Szilágyi, Orbán’s supporter, firmly agrees with his approach to immigration and to the EU, which he said has “completely strayed from its original principles.”

“They accuse Hungary of rejecting European values," he said of the EU, adding that the 27-nation bloc itself had "rejected every existing European value that has existed so far, and from which the Christian-based Europe grew.”

“That’s why I support Viktor Orbán. Because he was able to stand up to them. He succeeded so well that they’ve now politically beheaded him,” he said.

Orbán's government has frequently clashed with Brussels over corruption, media freedom, judicial independence and anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. More recently, it has prevented EU efforts to support Ukraine and sanction Russia over its full-scale invasion.

The bloc has frozen billions in funding to Hungary over rule of law concerns. In response, Orbán has campaigned heavily against the EU, comparing it to the Soviet Union, which had dominated Hungary for more than four decades.

Orbán also has cultivated close ties with like-minded leaders including U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. He's made common cause with euroskeptic, far-right parties, predicting a “patriotic” takeover of EU institutions.

Among the more than a dozen custom T-shirts in Szilágyi's pro-Orbán collection, several depict the likenesses of Trump and Orbán, declaring them “peacemakers” and "leaders of the free world."

Szilágyi has been a regular attendee of the Hungarian iterations of the Conservative Political Action Conference, and in 2022 traveled to Dallas for the national CPAC event. He was also present in Washington in February for Trump's inaugural Board of Peace meeting.

Despite Orbán's historic loss, Szilágyi said, his conservative political community will continue to back him, even if he isn't sitting in the prime minister's chair.

“I say that the people will stand by Orbán, and if he needs them, they’ll be there for him,” he said.