Hungary's long-dominant Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has conceded defeat in Sunday's parliamentary election, ending 16 years of uninterrupted rule and handing a stunning victory to opposition leader Péter Magyar and his Tisza party. Magyar, a former government insider who once applauded Orbán's speeches from the front row of Fidesz party events, emerged as the nationalist leader's most formidable challenger after breaking with the establishment in 2024 amid a presidential pardon scandal involving a child abuser's accomplice. His win, secured with a sweeping parliamentary majority, marks one of the most dramatic political reversals in modern Central European history.

Magyar has been invited to meet Hungarian President Tamás Sulyok — an Orbán loyalist whom Magyar has publicly called on to resign — to begin formal government-formation talks. The meeting is expected to be tense, though the scale of the mandate Magyar received is expected to smooth the path to power. European Parliament figures reacted with cautious optimism: Tineke Strik, the Dutch Green MEP who serves as the Parliament's lead coordinator on Hungary and the rule of law, said the result was