Hybrid Authoritarian
World’s Population
Population
HRF classifies Hungary as ruled by a hybrid authoritarian regime.
Hungary is a parliamentary republic that democratized in 1989-1990. In 1990, it held its first free and fair elections following 40 years of Communist rule, marked by the virtual absence of political alternatives and the thorough suppression of dissent (epitomized by the 1956 military intervention of the Soviet Union that quashed domestic protests against the regime). The president is the formal head of state but holds mostly ceremonial functions. The country has a 199-member unicameral legislature, elected through a mixed system: 106 representatives are elected in single-member constituencies, and the remaining 93 seats are allocated proportionally.
The right-wing, populist Fidesz party, led by the current Prime Minister Viktor Orban, has been in power since 2010. While the party enjoys roughly 50% popular support, idiosyncratic seat-allocation procedures that privilege the winner and the redrawing of constituencies that contradict recent demographic shifts have allowed it to secure two-thirds parliamentary majorities. Single-party rule, in turn, has paved the way for sweeping constitutional amendments and legislation that circumscribes the work of independent media and civil society.
The steady erosion of democratic checks and balances has prompted outcry among international partners, notably the European Union (EU), which Hungary joined in 2004. However, the European Union’s efforts to hold Hungary’s government accountable through infringement procedures (ongoing since 2018), the freezing of COVID-19 recovery funds, and multiple binding rulings of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) have yielded limited results in mitigating the country’s democratic backsliding.
Electoral competition in Hungary is significantly skewed in favor of the regime, to the point where the real, mainstream opposition has a highly unlikely, although realistic, chance to win. The ruling Fidesz party, in power since 2010, enjoys significant and unfair campaign advantages that seriously undermine the opposition’s ability to compete, from significant overrepresentation in the media to effective control over the state agencies responsible for enforcing campaign regulations.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public are seriously and unfairly hindered in their ability to openly criticize or challenge the regime. Fidesz has introduced legislation that led to the shutdown of major independent media, created a powerful media regulatory agency, the Media Council, which is biased in favor of pro-regime outlets, and seriously obstructed the work of civil society organizations. Despite these measures, there are still a handful of independent and opposition-affiliated outlets, and the regime has largely refrained from overtly harassing or intimidating political leaders and members of the general public who dissent.
Institutions are somewhat independent but frequently constrained by the regime. Arbitrary dismissals and other forms of retaliation against dissenting judges and the appointment of loyalists in their stead have considerably undermined judicial independence. Hence, the courts frequently and unfairly side with the regime when reviewing challenges to its main policies, despite isolated instances of dissent. Multiple oversight institutions have also clearly and systematically favored the ruling party, demonstrating a double standard in their application of key regulations.
In Hungary, electoral competition is significantly skewed in favor of the regime, to the point where the real, mainstream opposition has a highly unlikely, although realistic, chance to win. The ruling party enjoys a number of unfair campaign advantages, notably overrepresentation in the media and looser monitoring of its finances by the relevant state agencies, which have not consistently intervened to investigate and sanction potential irregularities. To ensure it can govern single-handedly, even amid diminishing popular support, the party has also pursued questionable electoral reforms, redrawing electoral districts and changing seat-allocation procedures in a manner benefiting the winner.
As the most recent parliamentary elections in 2022 demonstrated, the ruling party enjoys significant and unfair campaign advantages. Expert observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) considered the vote “largely free” but marred by “the absence” of an equal playing field. For instance, most private outlets hardly covered the opposition at all or cast it in an overwhelmingly negative light, suggesting their informal ties with the regime. The leader of United Opposition, a coalition of the six most popular opposition parties, Péter Márki-Zay, had a total of five minutes of airtime on public television during the entire 2022 campaign. In comparison, Prime Minister and Fidesz leader Viktor Orban’s 30-minute speech accusing the opposition of trying to “drag the country” into the war in Ukraine was broadcast on the public channel M1 no fewer than nine times during the 2022 campaign period. Fidesz officials have also abused administrative resources by campaigning in their official roles or unfairly exploiting citizens’ personal data for campaigning purposes. In 2022, watchdogs reported that the regime misused personal details citizens had provided to access administrative services (phone numbers and email addresses, primarily) to target them with political ads, automated calls, and other campaign materials without their consent. Experts assessed that this blurred the boundary between state and party and provided a systemic unfair advantage to Fidesz, as other political parties didn’t have the same access to potential voters’ personal information. They had to rely on conventional campaigning methods instead, such as paid advertising on social media and canvassing.
Fidesz has also seriously undermined national independent electoral oversight. Its appointees dominate the National Election Commission (NEC) and the State Audit Office (SAO), bodies responsible for organizing elections and enforcing campaign finance regulations, respectively. Both agencies have repeatedly dismissed opposition parties’ complaints regarding possible campaign finance violations by the ruling party and electoral irregularities. For instance, Fidesz appears to have repeatedly violated the cap on campaign spending (approximately 5 million USD) and the prohibition of in-kind donations to potential voters, yet has been allowed to do so with impunity, despite the opposition’s numerous complaints to the SAO. At the same time, the SAO has selectively enforced the same laws to target mainstream opposition parties and figures. In the lead-up to the 2018 parliamentary elections, for instance, SAO fined Jobbik, then the second most popular party after Fidesz, 1.29 million USD for an anti-regime billboard campaign. The agency’s findings and decisions, moreover, cannot be contested, denying impacted parties effective legal remedy.
While stopping short of overt voting irregularities and fraud, the regime has engaged in subtle but strategic electoral law manipulation, prompting outcry. Fidesz used its parliamentary supermajorities to redraw electoral districts twice, in 2011-2012 and 2024. Both reforms decreased the number of representatives elected in populous, opposition-leaning areas, such as Budapest, and increased the relative weight of each vote in regions that had typically supported Fidesz in the past. Ahead of the 2014 parliamentary elections, the party also introduced a specific seat-allocation system with built-in “winner compensation.” All votes from a single-member constituency above the threshold needed for defeating the runner-up are added to the winning party’s national result. The new system was the exact opposite of the status quo, in which only the losing party received a bonus to its overall result. Thus, the reform strategically increased disparities between the biggest party and its main competitors. Finally, Fidesz’s tactics for undermining fair electoral competition have also included its conspicuous support for sham opposition parties, likely to “split” the opposition vote. Meeting only minimal activity and visibility requirements, various political actors have steadily taken advantage of Hungary’s generous, but somewhat arbitrary and obscure, party subsidy system. Experts estimated that, ahead of the 2014 parliamentary elections, 14 new political parties of dubious relevance alone cost the public upwards of $14 million. Fidesz’s strategy for splintering the opposition vote seemingly bore fruit in the 2018 parliamentary vote, as there was no clear leadership or a single viable alternative to the regime among the opposition.
Independent media, civil society organizations, and members of the general public in Hungary are seriously and unfairly hindered in their capacity to openly criticize or challenge the regime. Fidesz has abused vague, arbitrary legal provisions to shut down independent organizations or render their main activities practically impossible. At the same time, its capture of influential oversight bodies, such as the Media Council, has enabled the formation of regime-friendly monopolies in the media sector, to the detriment of independent outlets. Finally, the regime recently escalated its attempts to obstruct peaceful demonstrations that do not conform to Fidesz’s policies, but met considerable public resistance. Despite the hostile environment the regime’s policies have created, civil society remains active, forestalling a more thoroughgoing erosion of the freedom of dissent.
Fidesz has taken measures that led to the unfair shutdown of major independent dissenting organizations. In 2010, for instance, Parliament approved a controversial media law that tightened administrative requirements for outlets and established the Media Council, a powerful media regulator whose members are appointed through a simple parliamentary majority (these appointment procedures, in turn, allowed Fidesz to fill the body with party loyalists). Under the law, the popular independent radio station Klubradio lost its license to operate in 2021 for minor infractions, such as missing a deadline to send a financial report to the Council and playing less Hungarian music than required. CSOs receiving foreign funding have to comply with onerous reporting requirements. A 2018 bill, colloquially known as “Stop Soros” after the eponymous philanthropist, effectively made it illegal for organizations to support asylum seekers. This hostile environment to civil society ultimately compelled the Hungarian chapter of the Open Society Foundation to close later that same year.
Fidesz has also seriously obstructed the work of independent media and CSOs by putting them in a precarious financial position vis-à-vis regime-friendly media conglomerates or through institutionalized intimidation. In the absence of laws regulating how the state allocates its exorbitant advertising budgets, averaging 80 million EUR per year or about 40% of the entire advertising market, Fidesz has systematically favored its allies. At the same time, the Media Council has enabled the consolidation of pro-regime outlets, while arbitrarily blocking mergers or acquisitions by foreign investors of prominent independent media. More than a dozen independent outlets have been acquired by local businesses with close ties to Fidesz, including Hungary’s largest independent daily at the time, Népszabadság, which was promptly suspended by its new owner in 2016. In December 2023, the regime formally established the controversial Sovereignty Protection Office (SPO), which has broad, loosely defined powers to investigate suspected “foreign influence” in politics and civil society. Shortly after becoming active in early 2024, the SPO launched “comprehensive investigations” against Transparency International and the investigative outlet Átlátszó, in what media watchdogs denounced as an instance of overt intimidation. Its repression against civil society continued in 2025, as the agency announced it was closely “monitoring” about 500 prominent Hungarian CSOs, which it dubbed Brussels “gold diggers” (agents of the EU undermining the country’s autonomy) in an official statement. In the same year, the SPO also engaged in a sustained smear campaign against independent media outlets, making unfounded claims about the size and sources of their foreign funding.
While Fidesz had mostly refrained from seriously and unfairly repressing dissenting protests or gatherings while in power, its effective ban on Pride events, introduced in March 2025, marked a concerning escalation of the regime’s crackdown on the LGBTQ+ community. The restrictions were built on a previous law, passed in 2021, prohibiting the “depiction or promotion” of homosexuality and gender reassignment procedures to individuals under 18, which triggered EU infringement procedures against Hungary (ongoing as of December 2025). The March 2025 amendments to the Assembly Act also authorized law enforcement to use facial recognition technology to identify participants and imposed fines of up to $500 on both organizers and members of the general public for taking part in events supporting the LGBTQ+ community. Despite the new draconian law and political pressure (e.g., the minister of justice threatening the capital’s mayor, Gergely Karácsony, with imprisonment if he allowed the march to proceed), Budapest Pride took place on June 28th, 2025, and saw record turnout.
These instances of mass mobilization and the perseverance of independent critical outlets in a structurally skewed media market indicate that the freedom of dissent has not entirely eroded despite the regime’s increasingly hostile policies.
In Hungary, institutions are somewhat independent, upholding key democratic principles in some notable instances but frequently constrained by the governing authority. Fidesz has pursued reforms, such as sweeping restaffing, that seriously undermined the judiciary’s independence and repeatedly retaliated against dissenting magistrates despite international censure. Nearly hollowed out, the courts have predominantly sided with the regime and rubber-stamped its attempts to reengineer the country’s electoral legal framework to its advantage and heavily limit the space for dissent. As outlined in the previous two pillars, the regime has effectively captured key oversight bodies regulating the media market, campaign finance, and the collection and use of citizens’ private data, weaponizing them in its executive overreach. This has allowed Fidesz to engage in electoral manipulation, obstruct the mainstream opposition’s campaigns, and bias media coverage in its favor with relative impunity.
The regime has subjected judicial institutions to reforms that abolish or seriously weaken their independence or operational effectiveness. Shortly after first coming to power in 2010, Fidesz began remaking the upper echelons of the judiciary, replacing impartial magistrates with regime loyalists. In 2011, it unilaterally lowered the retirement age for judges (a measure the Court of Justice of the European Union subsequently declared contrary to EU law). This resulted in the premature departure of nearly one-third of the Supreme Court Justices. Earlier that same year, another justice, András Baka, saw his mandate arbitrarily terminated by Parliament, after publicly criticizing Fidesz’s reforms. A 2014 ECtHR ruling found Baka’s dismissal violated Article 6 (“right to a free trial”) and Article (“freedom of expression”) of the European Convention on Human Rights. Since he was expressing a legitimate personal opinion, the state had unduly restricted his freedom of speech, while providing no suitable legal remedy for his removal. In addition, in 2019, Parliament significantly lowered the eligibility criteria for appointment to the Supreme Court (notably, the years and types of judicial experience required), removing one of the few remaining safeguards against purely political appointments. Lastly, the regime has severely hampered the domestic enforcement of international law by initiating Hungary’s withdrawal from the International Criminal Court (ICC) on June 2, 2025.
Reflecting pervasive political influence, Hungarian courts frequently and unfairly fail to check regime attempts to significantly undermine electoral competition. To illustrate, in 2013, the Constitutional Court approved sections of a bill that seriously re-drew electoral districts to Fidesz’s advantage. Less populous rural areas, which lean towards Fidesz, were split into multiple single-member constituencies, while cities such as the capital, Budapest, were only assigned a single representative. As a result, in 2014, Fidesz won nearly all constituency seats in Parliament and a two-thirds majority with only 45% of the popular vote.
The judicial branch has also frequently and unfairly failed to check regime attempts to repress criticism or retaliate against those who express open opposition to its most prominent, widely publicized policies. In 2020, for example, the Constitutional Court sided with the regime when reviewing the controversial merger of around 500 pro-regime media outlets under a non-profit entity, the Central European Press and Media Foundation (KESMA), owned by a close ally of Orban. The merger effectively turned KESMA into one of Europe’s biggest media conglomerates overnight and consolidated ownership of most of Hungary’s regional dailies, breaching EU antitrust regulations. Observers worry that the consolidation undermines media pluralism, already endangered by the closure of independent outlets, yet the Constitutional Court found the merger to be constitutional. In another instance, in 2021, the Court upheld the Media Council’s unfair license suspension of Klubradio for minor infractions, setting a troubling precedent.
Nevertheless, the courts in Hungary have also occasionally acted to check the regime and upheld the due-process rights of political leaders, dissidents, and members of the general public. In 2012, for example, the Constitutional Court struck down an amendment to electoral law, initiated by Fidesz, that was meant to introduce mandatory voter registration. The measure would have potentially disenfranchised last-minute, swing voters, indirectly bolstering Fidesz’s performance, which has heavily relied on partisan voters in the countryside.
In addition to the hollowing out of the judiciary, Fidesz has subjected independent oversight institutions to reforms that abolish or seriously weaken their independence or operational independence. Through its controversial 2010 constitutional reforms, it expanded the formal powers of some of these institutions or created new bodies to further its centralization of power. Party loyalists were promptly appointed to key leadership positions. For example, the State Audit Office, once respected for its impartiality and expertise, was given a broad mandate to investigate suspected misuse of public funds in 2010. A former Fidesz party member with no notable accounting experience was appointed head of the agency for a 12-year term with a parliamentary vote. In 2022, the Fidesz-dominated legislature selected the next SAO chair, also for a 12-year term. The constitutional amendments also established a Budget Council with the power to veto any budget produced by parliament that even marginally increases Hungary’s national debt. The Budget Council consists of three officials, two elected by a two-thirds vote of parliament (for 6-year terms) and one appointed by the president (12-year terms). Experts have noted that, since their terms are significantly longer than parliamentary cycles, the leaders of these bodies could conceivably continue to obstruct the work of future governments long after Fidesz has been voted out of power. Regime loyalists also dominate the NEC, the Media Council (also established by Fidesz in 2010), and the SPO (created through a December 2023 bill approved in parliament). All of these institutions have demonstrated a systemic bias in favor of the ruling party: for instance, the NEC has selectively applied campaign spending regulations, heavily penalizing the opposition for small violations, while turning a blind eye to the regime’s abuse of administrative resources and breaches of spending limits. Similarly, the SPO has been weaponized to conduct questionable investigations into dissenting civil society organizations and public watchdogs, in an overt attempt to intimidate and harass the latter. At the same time, the regime has nearly dismantled independent human rights protection agencies. In 2012, it replaced the four separate Ombudsmen with separate staffs and independent jurisdictions, with a single “parliamentary commissioner for human rights” with two deputies operating under his direction and considerably reduced resources. The independent Data Protection Commissioner was replaced in 2012 by a new authority (NAIH) appointed by the regime, prompting infringement proceedings by the European Commission for violating the body’s independence. Other experts have also noted that, taken together, these reforms have considerably hampered investigations into violations, undermining protections for vulnerable societal groups.
HRF classifies Hungary as ruled by a hybrid authoritarian regime.
Hungary is a parliamentary republic that democratized in 1989-1990. In 1990, it held its first free and fair elections following 40 years of Communist rule, marked by the virtual absence of political alternatives and the thorough suppression of dissent (epitomized by the 1956 military intervention of the Soviet Union that quashed domestic protests against the regime). The president is the formal head of state but holds mostly ceremonial functions. The country has a 199-member unicameral legislature, elected through a mixed system: 106 representatives are elected in single-member constituencies, and the remaining 93 seats are allocated proportionally.
The right-wing, populist Fidesz party, led by the current Prime Minister Viktor Orban, has been in power since 2010. While the party enjoys roughly 50% popular support, idiosyncratic seat-allocation procedures that privilege the winner and the redrawing of constituencies that contradict recent demographic shifts have allowed it to secure two-thirds parliamentary majorities. Single-party rule, in turn, has paved the way for sweeping constitutional amendments and legislation that circumscribes the work of independent media and civil society.
The steady erosion of democratic checks and balances has prompted outcry among international partners, notably the European Union (EU), which Hungary joined in 2004. However, the European Union’s efforts to hold Hungary’s government accountable through infringement procedures (ongoing since 2018), the freezing of COVID-19 recovery funds, and multiple binding rulings of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) have yielded limited results in mitigating the country’s democratic backsliding.
Electoral competition in Hungary is significantly skewed in favor of the regime, to the point where the real, mainstream opposition has a highly unlikely, although realistic, chance to win. The ruling Fidesz party, in power since 2010, enjoys significant and unfair campaign advantages that seriously undermine the opposition’s ability to compete, from significant overrepresentation in the media to effective control over the state agencies responsible for enforcing campaign regulations.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public are seriously and unfairly hindered in their ability to openly criticize or challenge the regime. Fidesz has introduced legislation that led to the shutdown of major independent media, created a powerful media regulatory agency, the Media Council, which is biased in favor of pro-regime outlets, and seriously obstructed the work of civil society organizations. Despite these measures, there are still a handful of independent and opposition-affiliated outlets, and the regime has largely refrained from overtly harassing or intimidating political leaders and members of the general public who dissent.
Institutions are somewhat independent but frequently constrained by the regime. Arbitrary dismissals and other forms of retaliation against dissenting judges and the appointment of loyalists in their stead have considerably undermined judicial independence. Hence, the courts frequently and unfairly side with the regime when reviewing challenges to its main policies, despite isolated instances of dissent. Multiple oversight institutions have also clearly and systematically favored the ruling party, demonstrating a double standard in their application of key regulations.
In Hungary, electoral competition is significantly skewed in favor of the regime, to the point where the real, mainstream opposition has a highly unlikely, although realistic, chance to win. The ruling party enjoys a number of unfair campaign advantages, notably overrepresentation in the media and looser monitoring of its finances by the relevant state agencies, which have not consistently intervened to investigate and sanction potential irregularities. To ensure it can govern single-handedly, even amid diminishing popular support, the party has also pursued questionable electoral reforms, redrawing electoral districts and changing seat-allocation procedures in a manner benefiting the winner.
As the most recent parliamentary elections in 2022 demonstrated, the ruling party enjoys significant and unfair campaign advantages. Expert observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) considered the vote “largely free” but marred by “the absence” of an equal playing field. For instance, most private outlets hardly covered the opposition at all or cast it in an overwhelmingly negative light, suggesting their informal ties with the regime. The leader of United Opposition, a coalition of the six most popular opposition parties, Péter Márki-Zay, had a total of five minutes of airtime on public television during the entire 2022 campaign. In comparison, Prime Minister and Fidesz leader Viktor Orban’s 30-minute speech accusing the opposition of trying to “drag the country” into the war in Ukraine was broadcast on the public channel M1 no fewer than nine times during the 2022 campaign period. Fidesz officials have also abused administrative resources by campaigning in their official roles or unfairly exploiting citizens’ personal data for campaigning purposes. In 2022, watchdogs reported that the regime misused personal details citizens had provided to access administrative services (phone numbers and email addresses, primarily) to target them with political ads, automated calls, and other campaign materials without their consent. Experts assessed that this blurred the boundary between state and party and provided a systemic unfair advantage to Fidesz, as other political parties didn’t have the same access to potential voters’ personal information. They had to rely on conventional campaigning methods instead, such as paid advertising on social media and canvassing.
Fidesz has also seriously undermined national independent electoral oversight. Its appointees dominate the National Election Commission (NEC) and the State Audit Office (SAO), bodies responsible for organizing elections and enforcing campaign finance regulations, respectively. Both agencies have repeatedly dismissed opposition parties’ complaints regarding possible campaign finance violations by the ruling party and electoral irregularities. For instance, Fidesz appears to have repeatedly violated the cap on campaign spending (approximately 5 million USD) and the prohibition of in-kind donations to potential voters, yet has been allowed to do so with impunity, despite the opposition’s numerous complaints to the SAO. At the same time, the SAO has selectively enforced the same laws to target mainstream opposition parties and figures. In the lead-up to the 2018 parliamentary elections, for instance, SAO fined Jobbik, then the second most popular party after Fidesz, 1.29 million USD for an anti-regime billboard campaign. The agency’s findings and decisions, moreover, cannot be contested, denying impacted parties effective legal remedy.
While stopping short of overt voting irregularities and fraud, the regime has engaged in subtle but strategic electoral law manipulation, prompting outcry. Fidesz used its parliamentary supermajorities to redraw electoral districts twice, in 2011-2012 and 2024. Both reforms decreased the number of representatives elected in populous, opposition-leaning areas, such as Budapest, and increased the relative weight of each vote in regions that had typically supported Fidesz in the past. Ahead of the 2014 parliamentary elections, the party also introduced a specific seat-allocation system with built-in “winner compensation.” All votes from a single-member constituency above the threshold needed for defeating the runner-up are added to the winning party’s national result. The new system was the exact opposite of the status quo, in which only the losing party received a bonus to its overall result. Thus, the reform strategically increased disparities between the biggest party and its main competitors. Finally, Fidesz’s tactics for undermining fair electoral competition have also included its conspicuous support for sham opposition parties, likely to “split” the opposition vote. Meeting only minimal activity and visibility requirements, various political actors have steadily taken advantage of Hungary’s generous, but somewhat arbitrary and obscure, party subsidy system. Experts estimated that, ahead of the 2014 parliamentary elections, 14 new political parties of dubious relevance alone cost the public upwards of $14 million. Fidesz’s strategy for splintering the opposition vote seemingly bore fruit in the 2018 parliamentary vote, as there was no clear leadership or a single viable alternative to the regime among the opposition.
Independent media, civil society organizations, and members of the general public in Hungary are seriously and unfairly hindered in their capacity to openly criticize or challenge the regime. Fidesz has abused vague, arbitrary legal provisions to shut down independent organizations or render their main activities practically impossible. At the same time, its capture of influential oversight bodies, such as the Media Council, has enabled the formation of regime-friendly monopolies in the media sector, to the detriment of independent outlets. Finally, the regime recently escalated its attempts to obstruct peaceful demonstrations that do not conform to Fidesz’s policies, but met considerable public resistance. Despite the hostile environment the regime’s policies have created, civil society remains active, forestalling a more thoroughgoing erosion of the freedom of dissent.
Fidesz has taken measures that led to the unfair shutdown of major independent dissenting organizations. In 2010, for instance, Parliament approved a controversial media law that tightened administrative requirements for outlets and established the Media Council, a powerful media regulator whose members are appointed through a simple parliamentary majority (these appointment procedures, in turn, allowed Fidesz to fill the body with party loyalists). Under the law, the popular independent radio station Klubradio lost its license to operate in 2021 for minor infractions, such as missing a deadline to send a financial report to the Council and playing less Hungarian music than required. CSOs receiving foreign funding have to comply with onerous reporting requirements. A 2018 bill, colloquially known as “Stop Soros” after the eponymous philanthropist, effectively made it illegal for organizations to support asylum seekers. This hostile environment to civil society ultimately compelled the Hungarian chapter of the Open Society Foundation to close later that same year.
Fidesz has also seriously obstructed the work of independent media and CSOs by putting them in a precarious financial position vis-à-vis regime-friendly media conglomerates or through institutionalized intimidation. In the absence of laws regulating how the state allocates its exorbitant advertising budgets, averaging 80 million EUR per year or about 40% of the entire advertising market, Fidesz has systematically favored its allies. At the same time, the Media Council has enabled the consolidation of pro-regime outlets, while arbitrarily blocking mergers or acquisitions by foreign investors of prominent independent media. More than a dozen independent outlets have been acquired by local businesses with close ties to Fidesz, including Hungary’s largest independent daily at the time, Népszabadság, which was promptly suspended by its new owner in 2016. In December 2023, the regime formally established the controversial Sovereignty Protection Office (SPO), which has broad, loosely defined powers to investigate suspected “foreign influence” in politics and civil society. Shortly after becoming active in early 2024, the SPO launched “comprehensive investigations” against Transparency International and the investigative outlet Átlátszó, in what media watchdogs denounced as an instance of overt intimidation. Its repression against civil society continued in 2025, as the agency announced it was closely “monitoring” about 500 prominent Hungarian CSOs, which it dubbed Brussels “gold diggers” (agents of the EU undermining the country’s autonomy) in an official statement. In the same year, the SPO also engaged in a sustained smear campaign against independent media outlets, making unfounded claims about the size and sources of their foreign funding.
While Fidesz had mostly refrained from seriously and unfairly repressing dissenting protests or gatherings while in power, its effective ban on Pride events, introduced in March 2025, marked a concerning escalation of the regime’s crackdown on the LGBTQ+ community. The restrictions were built on a previous law, passed in 2021, prohibiting the “depiction or promotion” of homosexuality and gender reassignment procedures to individuals under 18, which triggered EU infringement procedures against Hungary (ongoing as of December 2025). The March 2025 amendments to the Assembly Act also authorized law enforcement to use facial recognition technology to identify participants and imposed fines of up to $500 on both organizers and members of the general public for taking part in events supporting the LGBTQ+ community. Despite the new draconian law and political pressure (e.g., the minister of justice threatening the capital’s mayor, Gergely Karácsony, with imprisonment if he allowed the march to proceed), Budapest Pride took place on June 28th, 2025, and saw record turnout.
These instances of mass mobilization and the perseverance of independent critical outlets in a structurally skewed media market indicate that the freedom of dissent has not entirely eroded despite the regime’s increasingly hostile policies.
In Hungary, institutions are somewhat independent, upholding key democratic principles in some notable instances but frequently constrained by the governing authority. Fidesz has pursued reforms, such as sweeping restaffing, that seriously undermined the judiciary’s independence and repeatedly retaliated against dissenting magistrates despite international censure. Nearly hollowed out, the courts have predominantly sided with the regime and rubber-stamped its attempts to reengineer the country’s electoral legal framework to its advantage and heavily limit the space for dissent. As outlined in the previous two pillars, the regime has effectively captured key oversight bodies regulating the media market, campaign finance, and the collection and use of citizens’ private data, weaponizing them in its executive overreach. This has allowed Fidesz to engage in electoral manipulation, obstruct the mainstream opposition’s campaigns, and bias media coverage in its favor with relative impunity.
The regime has subjected judicial institutions to reforms that abolish or seriously weaken their independence or operational effectiveness. Shortly after first coming to power in 2010, Fidesz began remaking the upper echelons of the judiciary, replacing impartial magistrates with regime loyalists. In 2011, it unilaterally lowered the retirement age for judges (a measure the Court of Justice of the European Union subsequently declared contrary to EU law). This resulted in the premature departure of nearly one-third of the Supreme Court Justices. Earlier that same year, another justice, András Baka, saw his mandate arbitrarily terminated by Parliament, after publicly criticizing Fidesz’s reforms. A 2014 ECtHR ruling found Baka’s dismissal violated Article 6 (“right to a free trial”) and Article (“freedom of expression”) of the European Convention on Human Rights. Since he was expressing a legitimate personal opinion, the state had unduly restricted his freedom of speech, while providing no suitable legal remedy for his removal. In addition, in 2019, Parliament significantly lowered the eligibility criteria for appointment to the Supreme Court (notably, the years and types of judicial experience required), removing one of the few remaining safeguards against purely political appointments. Lastly, the regime has severely hampered the domestic enforcement of international law by initiating Hungary’s withdrawal from the International Criminal Court (ICC) on June 2, 2025.
Reflecting pervasive political influence, Hungarian courts frequently and unfairly fail to check regime attempts to significantly undermine electoral competition. To illustrate, in 2013, the Constitutional Court approved sections of a bill that seriously re-drew electoral districts to Fidesz’s advantage. Less populous rural areas, which lean towards Fidesz, were split into multiple single-member constituencies, while cities such as the capital, Budapest, were only assigned a single representative. As a result, in 2014, Fidesz won nearly all constituency seats in Parliament and a two-thirds majority with only 45% of the popular vote.
The judicial branch has also frequently and unfairly failed to check regime attempts to repress criticism or retaliate against those who express open opposition to its most prominent, widely publicized policies. In 2020, for example, the Constitutional Court sided with the regime when reviewing the controversial merger of around 500 pro-regime media outlets under a non-profit entity, the Central European Press and Media Foundation (KESMA), owned by a close ally of Orban. The merger effectively turned KESMA into one of Europe’s biggest media conglomerates overnight and consolidated ownership of most of Hungary’s regional dailies, breaching EU antitrust regulations. Observers worry that the consolidation undermines media pluralism, already endangered by the closure of independent outlets, yet the Constitutional Court found the merger to be constitutional. In another instance, in 2021, the Court upheld the Media Council’s unfair license suspension of Klubradio for minor infractions, setting a troubling precedent.
Nevertheless, the courts in Hungary have also occasionally acted to check the regime and upheld the due-process rights of political leaders, dissidents, and members of the general public. In 2012, for example, the Constitutional Court struck down an amendment to electoral law, initiated by Fidesz, that was meant to introduce mandatory voter registration. The measure would have potentially disenfranchised last-minute, swing voters, indirectly bolstering Fidesz’s performance, which has heavily relied on partisan voters in the countryside.
In addition to the hollowing out of the judiciary, Fidesz has subjected independent oversight institutions to reforms that abolish or seriously weaken their independence or operational independence. Through its controversial 2010 constitutional reforms, it expanded the formal powers of some of these institutions or created new bodies to further its centralization of power. Party loyalists were promptly appointed to key leadership positions. For example, the State Audit Office, once respected for its impartiality and expertise, was given a broad mandate to investigate suspected misuse of public funds in 2010. A former Fidesz party member with no notable accounting experience was appointed head of the agency for a 12-year term with a parliamentary vote. In 2022, the Fidesz-dominated legislature selected the next SAO chair, also for a 12-year term. The constitutional amendments also established a Budget Council with the power to veto any budget produced by parliament that even marginally increases Hungary’s national debt. The Budget Council consists of three officials, two elected by a two-thirds vote of parliament (for 6-year terms) and one appointed by the president (12-year terms). Experts have noted that, since their terms are significantly longer than parliamentary cycles, the leaders of these bodies could conceivably continue to obstruct the work of future governments long after Fidesz has been voted out of power. Regime loyalists also dominate the NEC, the Media Council (also established by Fidesz in 2010), and the SPO (created through a December 2023 bill approved in parliament). All of these institutions have demonstrated a systemic bias in favor of the ruling party: for instance, the NEC has selectively applied campaign spending regulations, heavily penalizing the opposition for small violations, while turning a blind eye to the regime’s abuse of administrative resources and breaches of spending limits. Similarly, the SPO has been weaponized to conduct questionable investigations into dissenting civil society organizations and public watchdogs, in an overt attempt to intimidate and harass the latter. At the same time, the regime has nearly dismantled independent human rights protection agencies. In 2012, it replaced the four separate Ombudsmen with separate staffs and independent jurisdictions, with a single “parliamentary commissioner for human rights” with two deputies operating under his direction and considerably reduced resources. The independent Data Protection Commissioner was replaced in 2012 by a new authority (NAIH) appointed by the regime, prompting infringement proceedings by the European Commission for violating the body’s independence. Other experts have also noted that, taken together, these reforms have considerably hampered investigations into violations, undermining protections for vulnerable societal groups.
