Hungarians cast ballots Sunday in what is widely seen as Europe’s most consequential election this year, a vote that could unseat the European Union’s longest-serving leader and one of its biggest antagonists.
It is a key moment for populist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, an ally of President Trump, who has traveled a long road from his early days as a liberal, anti-Soviet firebrand to a Russian-friendly nationalist admired today by the global far-right.
Addressing his supporters Sunday evening, Orbán’s opponent Péter Magyar said that up to 6 million Hungarians had voted in Sunday’s election, in a country that has little more than 9 million people.
Magyar said that despite receiving thousands of reports of election tampering, he was “cautiously optimistic” of victory.
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Earlier on Sunday, speaking to reporters after casting his ballot, Orbán, 62, said the campaign had been “a great national moment on our side” and thanked activists and supporters for their work. “I’m here to win,” he said.
Independent watchdogs and European Union officials have accused Orbán’s government of launching a sustained assault on the country’s democratic institutions and rule of law since. In the 16 years since he took office in 2010, the country has descended to the rank of the most corrupt country in the European Union, according to the U.K.-based anti-corruption group Transparency International.
At a polling station in Budapest on Sunday, CBS News spoke to a handful of voters, all of whom said they were voting for Magyar and his center-right Tiscza party.
“Orban is very anti-EU and pro-Russia, and I think that aligning yourself with, in my opinion, a war criminal, is not good for the country of Hungary,” said a 21-year-old who only identified himself as Daniel.
Casting his ballot in Budapest on Sunday, Marcell Mehringer, 21, said he was voting “primarily so that Hungary will finally be a so-called European country, and so that young people, and really everyone, will do their fundamental civic duty to unite this nation a bit and to break down these boundaries borne of hatred.”
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Orbán has been one of Mr. Trump’s closest global allies since the U.S. president was first elected in 2016. The relationship has deepened between the two men over the past decade. The partnership between the Trump administration and Orbán was on full display when Vice President JD Vance publicly campaigned alongside the Hungarian leader in Budapest last week.
