Hungary’s Orban won’t take up parliament seat after landslide loss, wants to lead renewal

Hungary’s outgoing Prime Minister Viktor Orban said he would not take up his seat in parliament following his party’s landslide defeat in this month’s election but wants to stay on as Fidesz’s leader to lead a process of “renewal”.

The most dominant figure in Hungarian politics since the fall of Communism in 1989, Orban has sat in Hungary’s legislature for 36 years without interruption, serving as premier for the past sixteen years.

“I’m not needed in parliament now but in the reorganisation of the nationalist side,” said Orban, who held the No 1 slot on his Fidesz party’s candidate list. He added that he would seek re-election as party leader at its June congress.

Fidesz’s defeat was hailed by many liberals and progressives as evidence that the wave of right-wing populism that has swept across the US and much of Europe had peaked.

Backed by US President Donald Trump, Orban was the only European Union leader still nurturing close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and wielded his veto to delay an EU loan to Ukraine.

Orban has in the past stepped back to re-emerge as an even more powerful figure. When his previous one-term government was defeated in 2002, he gave up the party leadership to rally his conservative base into a new alliance, at the head of which he returned to government eight years later.