The parliamentary elections held on April 12 in Hungary mark a political turning point for the country. After 16 years of Fidesz rule, Péter Magyar of the Tisza Party will replace his former ally Viktor Orbán as prime minister.

The extremely aggressive election campaign was marked not only by significant interference from Russia and the U.S. in Orbán’s favor, but also by smear campaigns against his challenger. Despite all the propaganda and the misuse of state resources, Orbán failed to divert attention from the country’s deep economic crisis and the catastrophic state of the education and healthcare systems.

Following the election, we will discuss the key questions arising from the change in power: What are the implications of the results for democracy and the rule of law? How will Hungary’s role in the EU and in the war in Ukraine evolve? And what challenges does Tisza face in dismantling the Orbán system?

We will explore these questions in our election briefing with experts from academia and civil society.

Experts:
Zsófia Bánuta, Founder of Unhack Democracy
Zsófia Schmidt, Scholar of Eastern European Studies, Junge DGO

Moderation:
Natalia Sobczuk and Johannes Kleinmann, Junge DGO

The event is organized by the Berlin/Brandenburg regional group of Junge DGO.