Viktor Orbán retains Fidesz leadership with 98.9% vote at congress after electoral defeat

Orbán secures overwhelming re-election

At the 32nd congress of Fidesz in Budapest on Saturday, Viktor Orbán was the sole candidate for party chairman. Of 737 delegates, 729 backed him, giving him 98.9 percent support; the remaining eight abstained. No one voted against the former prime minister. The congress also elected four deputy chairpersons: Kinga Gal, Janos Boka, Alpar Gyoparos and Balint Kreicsi.

I will not surrender, never, never, never.

Before the vote, Orbán addressed delegates about the parliamentary elections on 12 April that stripped Fidesz of power. He said he bore personal responsibility for strategic errors and defended his campaign chief Balazs Orban and mobilisation director Gabor Kubatov, insisting the fault was his alone.

A brutal defeat among young voters

Orbán acknowledged that his party failed to convince young people, calling the result among that demographic “a brutal defeat.” He highlighted that Tisza proved much more attractive to voters, and the campaign did not anticipate high turnout or the opposition’s mobilisation system.

The elections were lost because of our brutal defeat among young people.

He also said the internet campaign was “catastrophic,” as Fidesz faced corruption accusations and what he described as foreign-controlled algorithms, while the opposition neutralised Fidesz’s warnings about the war in Ukraine and national security.

Fidesz must remake itself as opposition

The former leader said the party, after 16 years in government, is not yet a competent opposition force. He called for organisational renewal and a new mission: blocking mistaken government decisions, organising resistance against what he called “brutal abuses of power,” and defending those treated unfairly.

We must serve the country differently, both in government and in opposition. In opposition we must be the voice of the people.

He announced that he would work to rebuild his political camp and resigned the parliamentary mandate he won in April to focus on the party.

Tisza’s constitutional majority

The April vote gave the Tisza Party, led by new Prime Minister Péter Magyar, a constitutional majority of 141 seats in the 199-seat National Assembly. The Fidesz-Christian Democratic coalition won 52 seats (44 for Fidesz) and the right-wing Mi Hazánk took six. The result ended Orbán’s tenure as Hungary’s longest-serving premier.

The power shift unfolded over weeks: Magyar took office on 9 May, and Orbán, who had led the country from 1998 to 2002 and again from 2010, stepped into the opposition role formally accepted at this congress.