Pro-European conservative Peter Magyar is to be sworn in as Hungary’s Prime Minister on Saturday (May 9, 2026) as he promises “regime change” after nationalist Viktor Orban’s 16 years in power.

The former government insider-turned-critic scored a landslide victory last month, pledging wide-ranging reforms to fight corruption.

Mr. Magyar, 45, also wants to undo changes Mr. Orban — who fostered close ties with U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin — made to institutions to control the judiciary, media, academia and other sectors.

Mr. Magyar’s Tisza party won 141 of parliament’s 199 seats in the April 12 election, a comfortable two-thirds majority enabling it to change the constitution and push through key reforms.

As one of his most urgent tasks, Mr. Magyar is trying to unlock billions of euros in EU funds locked by Brussels over rule-of-law concerns.

Mr. Magyar will take the oath of office during parliament’s inaugural session, opening at 10:00 a.m. (0800 GMT), and will be live-streamed on large screens set up around the parliamentary building.

Lawmakers are expected to elect Mr. Magyar as Prime Minister in the afternoon, and he is then expected to address supporters outside parliament.

High expectations

Last week, Mr. Magyar met European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen for talks.

Hungary faces serious challenges, including a stagnating economy and falling public services, which analysts say need long-term structural reorganisation.

“There is a lot of patience and goodwill toward the new government, but the expectations are through the roof and need to be met in the short-term as well,” Andrea Virag, director of strategy at the liberal Republikon Institute think tank, told AFP.

Magyar has urged the president and other Orban allies to resign as part of his “regime change”. He has also called on the authorities to stop Orban’s associates from moving capital abroad.

Orban said last month that he would not sit in parliament — giving up the seat he won — for the first time since the country’s democratisation in 1990.

The 62-year-old, who aimed to turn the country of 9.5 million into a model of “illiberal democracy” and widely restricted rights, has said he would focus on the “reorganisation of the national camp”.

‘Reconciliation’

On Saturday (May 9, 2026), lawmakers are set to elect hotelier Agnes Forsthoffer as parliament speaker, one of the many women Tisza has tapped for senior roles.

As the new ruling party pushes to deliver a more diverse representation than Orban’s coalition, nominations also include lawyer Vilmos Katai-Nemeth as Social and Family Affairs Minister — Hungary’s first? ever a visually impaired Minister. Roma history teacher Krisztian Koszegi would become the Deputy Parliament Speaker.

Saturday’s (May 9, 2026) festivities outside and inside parliament are laden with symbolism, featuring flags and music that pay tribute to Hungary’s EU membership, its sizeable Roma minority and ethnic Hungarians in neighbouring countries.

“Magyar seeks to show that he represents a form of national unity and reconciliation after Orban’s politics of division,” Ms. Virag said.

“With the festivities he also wants to show that it was not a mere change of government, but a start of a new era,” she added.

Outgoing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán will not take his seat in parliament following a landslide election loss this month, and will instead focus on rebuilding his nationalist-populist political community, he announced on Saturday (April 25, 2026) in a video on social media.

Hungary’s April 12 election brought an end to Mr. Orbán’s 16 years in power when voters cast their ballots overwhelmingly for a centre-right challenger who promised to crack down on endemic corruption and restore Hungary’s democratic institutions that had been eroded under Mr. Orbán.

“Never before in the history of democratic Hungary have so many people voted — and no single party has ever received such a strong mandate,” said Peter Magyar, leader of the centre-right Tisza party, after they won the parliamentary elections in Hungary with a thumping two-thirds majority, defeating its far-right, Christian nationalist strongman Victor Orban and his Fidesz party, after 16 years of continuous rule.

Magyar’s Tisza party won 136 seats of the 199-member Hungarian Parliament while Mr. Orban won only 57 seats. This supermajority will help the 45-year-old lawyer-turned-politician reverse various laws bulldozed by the Orban administration on education, healthcare, and the economy as well as policies which compromised the independence of the judiciary and media freedoms. His takeover also signals a potential rebuilding of ties with the European Union.

The voter’s verdict in Hungary, that ousted Victor Orban, Hungary’s Christian-nationalist, populist and hard-right Prime Minister with a record 20 years in power (1998-2002 and 2010-2026) and four previous consecutive electoral wins, is unambiguous. According to the latest results, opposition leader Peter Magyar’s Tisza party has won about 138 seats, to Mr. Orban’s Fidesz party’s 55. The massive two-thirds majority in the Hungarian parliament is enough to help Mr. Magyar overturn many of the Orban-era shifts on education and health, judicial independence, and the controversial NER (Nemzeti Együttműködés Rendszere) or National Cooperation System that the opposition said had led to an economic downturn, widespread corruption and crony capitalism, as well as an anti-European Union stance. Mr. Magyar, who was a Fidesz party leader until just two years ago when he quit the ruling party in protest of its policies and set up his own political movement, is unlikely to reverse Mr. Orban’s anti-immigrant policies, however. Ahead of the polls, Victor Orban was endorsed by three powerful leaders, all seen as aggressors in recent conflicts — U.S. President Donald Trump, who even sent Vice-President J.D. Vance to address a public rally with Mr. Orban in Budapest last week; Russian President Vladimir Putin; and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom Mr. Orban supported unequivocally. Hungary actually quit the International Criminal Court after it issued a warrant against the Israeli Prime Minister for war crimes. It remains to be seen whether post-Orban Hungary turns its course on the wars in Iran, Ukraine or Gaza.

Most significantly for the world, that saw the rise of many populist leaders through elections in the 2010s, Hungary’s election verdict denotes that voters worldwide may be tiring of the hard-right, anti-pluralistic, anti-immigrant and xenophobic rhetoric they favoured. Similar outcomes have been seen in elections in Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, the U.K. and Poland. Such trends also provide a check to the authoritarian single-party rule that a whole range of leaders have tried to implement using illiberal policies, politically motivated cases against the opposition, the denigration of democratic institutions and a clampdown on free speech. Mr. Magyar has his work cut out if he aims to reverse these policies in Hungary. The real test of a democratic leader is not just winning elections, but in pursuing inclusive policies, representational of the entire population and providing accountability for their actions, long after forming the government.

Nationalist Viktor Orban, who has ruled Hungary for 16 years, on Sunday (April 12, 2026) conceded defeat to conservative Peter Magyar in parliamentary elections.

With votes in almost 67% of precincts counted, Mr. Magyar’s party stood to have gained 137 seats, or more than two-thirds of all 199 parliamentary seats, according to official election results.