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# Orban’s victory might not make sense to the West. But it’s what Hungary wants.
- URL: https://thedailyeudemon.com/56394/
- Published: 2022-04-13T10:58:23.000Z
- Updated: 2022-05-28T18:14:33.000Z
- Description: From the Washington Post
- Author: Eric Scheske
- Tags: Current Affairs, #tde, #wpChunk

Western elites no doubt find Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s landslide victory on Sunday distasteful. To some extent, this is justified: Independent election observers faulted Orban’s party, Fidesz, for [tilting the playing field](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/31/world/europe/hungary-viktor-orban-election.html?ref=thedailyeudemon.com) in its favor.

But it’s also true that Orban was reelected because of his combination of market economics, nationalism and social conservatism. This is what a majority of Hungarians want.

The history of Hungarian politics since the fall of communism makes this clear. The country’s first free election, [in 1990](https://valtor.valasztas.hu/valtort/jsp/orszjkv.jsp?EA=3&W=2&ref=thedailyeudemon.com), was won by a nationalist Christian democratic party, the Hungarian Democratic Forum, with about 25 percent. Three other conservative parties, including Fidesz, combined for an additional 27 percent. The nationalist center-right, therefore, had roughly 52 percent support.

That pattern held for the next 20 years, even as the parties themselves evolved. With the exception of the [1994](https://valtor.valasztas.hu/valtort/jsp/orszjkv.jsp?EA=8&W=2&ref=thedailyeudemon.com) election, the collection of center-right parties consistently received between [49](https://valtor.valasztas.hu/valtort/jsp/orszjkv.jsp?EA=8&W=2&ref=thedailyeudemon.com) and [54](https://valtor.valasztas.hu/valtort/jsp/orszjkv.jsp?EA=8&W=2&ref=thedailyeudemon.com) percent of the vote. Orban’s Fidesz party, once an urban-based party focused on market economics, grew into a nationalist, big-tent party with a variety of conservative views. By 2006, it was the dominant party among Hungarian conservatives.

[Read the rest at the *Washington Post*](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/04/05/hungary-election-viktor-orban-landslide-what-voters-want/?ref=thedailyeudemon.com)