Hungary's Viktor Orbán Concedes Defeat in Election | Hacker News Reader

Hungary's Viktor Orbán Concedes Defeat in Election

wsj.com

The results were quite clear. About 2/3 voted someone else, roughly. I think this was also the primary reason why Orban congratulated quickly.

Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47743553

Good riddance.

Not much of a dictatorship if the dictator concedes defeat after an election that was possible for him to lose.

True, it's not so much a dictatorship, more like just a certain type of mindset. Shared by Trump, Vance (I guess), Elon, and the AfD party, Le Pen (maybe) and more.

What do we call this mindset? Right wing authoritarianism? Anti-immigrant sentiment? Poland next door to Hungary is also very anti-immigrant and proud of it (everyone from Duda onwards).

Illiberal democracy

His options were limited. Aside from his tirades against the EU, he was completely dependent on it, as it financed half the country – Hungary was the largest per capita recipient of EU funds. This was also the reason why he never seriously attempted to leave the Union.

He could now take certain steps, such as eliminating press freedom, but election fraud on the scale that would have been necessary to skew this election would have led to sanctions.

Congratulations! Also excellent future for the EU and Ukraine

Why is this and all other posts about this flagged?

HN has a large enough MAGA contingent that believes by not talking about it the world will hold off a little longer from bringing down their idol. What happened to Orban could and should happen to Trump. But America is only in year 6 of seeing someone wreck their country, Orban was in year 16. So presumably they still have a bit further to go down before they kick out their Russian stooges.

Mods have the power to unflag these but don't, usually because they don't see these threads (though, if they really wanted to they could view the 'active' page). It's interesting to see what you can and can not talk about on HN, local US politics (esp. California) is fine, global possibly world changing things are not.

> HN has a large enough MAGA contingent that believes by not talking about it the world will hold off a little longer from bringing down their idol.

No. You're projecting. You're one of those types that sees politics in everything--that wants politics in everything. Some of us, me included, flag political stories not because of our beliefs but because we'd rather HN not become Reddit, or the countless other spaces that have been perniciously and intentionally invaded by "always politics, all the time" people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_lady_doth_protest_too_much...

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

Hell yes

Big win for democracy. Not even 16 years of Orban and russian-, trumpian-, and technofascist interference could kill it. quite amazing actually

It almost makes you think there is still some good left in the world.

yes - i am so relieved. this was a real conundrum for the EU - booting hungary out would have been a huge problem (i.e. opening the door for a russian stronghold right in its mid), but keeping orban in would mean the a) abuse continued and b) it would send a signal to others that this is a winning strategy.

democracy may suffer from the problem that it allows the election of anti-democratic autocrats but it seems that it's definitely able to come back from the brink, even if the deck's stacked against it. i wonder what message it sends to the other countries.

Certainly an excellent news. What puzzles me that he managed to stay in power for 4 periods, despite behaving very consistently - subverting EU, de facto being russian spy, stealing EU dotations, led Hungary to stagnation. Yet people kept voting him in.

Exactly same story as just north from it, Fico in Slovakia is a tragedy for that nation and he keeps winning the votes.

So great news, for now.

Are you aware that Magyar was with Orban until 2024, right? It's funny how some people think he is some amazing change...

"ally of President Trump" -- more like an ally of Putin?

you can be both.

Both. Both are allies too. Are you not watching the news for past decade?

Also, DJ vance was lobbing for him righr before elections in some local gatherings during his visot few days ago. So much for not interfering.

One doesn’t exclude the other.

Good news, now let's rid the rest of Europe and the world of fascists and authoritarians

Also a right wing former insider of the regime, but one that seemingly is turning has back on the regime authoritarianism & exploitation that has characterized the right's ascent worldwide. At least has shown some backbone, respect, decency, & is tired of the world burners, that believe in their vicious nasty strongmen, who seem intent only on grifting, tearing things down, and inflaming tensions.

Amazingly frank talk from Peter: https://telex.hu/belfold/2024/02/10/magyar-peter-varga-judit...

I really appreciate this comedic take from Bluesky:

> analogy for the America brained is like if the Dems lost to Trump four times in a row and then ran Mitt Romney to save the country and won crazy supermajorities and also Mitt Romney was named Johnny America https://bsky.app/profile/michaelcaley.bsky.social/post/3mjd2...

Mitt Romney was OK. So was John McCain. Both of Obama's opponents were pretty decent guys. I disagreed with them, but they weren't actively trying to destroy the country.

And arguably, that's why they lost. When Republicans run somebody on a platform of being actively hostile, they win. It took a global pandemic to upset that pattern. The moderates will vote red no matter who, but the extremists will come out in droves if you pander to them.

So... if it's really Mitt Romney running Hungary, I'm just fine with that.

Sadly, I fear the analogy breaks down, and that Magyar might be less intelligent and thoughtful than Romney. I hope I'm wrong about that.

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