Carney welcomes Hungary vote that shifts stance on Ukraine and democracy

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney welcomed Hungary’s shift toward support for both Ukraine and liberal democracy on Sunday after voters in the European nation ended 16 years of far-right government.

After Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban conceded defeat to Peter Magyar and his Tisza party on Sunday, Carney congratulated Magyar “on a decisive election victory” in a social media post.

“The Hungarian people have chosen a new path. We are ready to work with you, and our European allies, to deepen our co-operation in trade, defence, and security,” Carney wrote.

Former Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff called it a historic moment for democracy in Central Europe.

“That’s what democracy is for, to throw the rascals out,” Ignatieff told The Canadian Press in an interview from Hungary.

Since 2010, Orban ran a government in Budapest that attacked media freedom, courts and universities, while blocking European financial and military support for Ukraine.

On Sunday, Magyar led Tisza to a supermajority on a platform that promised to restore ties with allies and root out corruption. Magyar said Monday he will press Russian President Vladimir Putin to “end the killing” in Ukraine.

Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand also praised Tisza’s victory on social media.

“The people of Hungary have made their choice in a decisive election, setting a new course for the country,” she wrote.

In his youth, Orban gained prominence by pushing for the removal of Soviet troops. He rose to power in 2010 as Hungarians chafed against what Ignatieff said was a condescending feeling related to European integration, along with a scarring global recession.

“Hungarians went to work in the West when they got into the European Union. They discovered that they were regarded as kind of primitive, backward, low-wage workers. And Orban heard that, and picked up on it, and a lot of his anti-European style appealed to voters,” Ignatieff said.

Orban consolidated power by rewriting the constitution, limiting the judiciary and proposing what he called an “illiberal democracy” that would reflect the concerns of a traditional society based on smaller towns. Corruption became endemic, particularly through European Union transfers.

The EU had frozen funds for Hungary in recent years over its democratic backsliding and widespread graft.

Protests were allowed in Hungary but the Orban government meddled in the media sector, and government-funded outlets closely followed political dissidents.

Orban funded think tanks that advanced socially conservative and pro-Russia views that were hostile to left-leaning groups and LGBTQ+ people — which gained popularity among American conservatives.

Orban also painted Kyiv as the cause of instability in Europe and played into Hungarians’ fears of being drawn into the conflict in neighbouring Ukraine while relying on Russia for oil and gas, Ignatieff said.

“He was the darling of the of the Trump Republicans,” said Ignatieff. He said public sentiment started to shift during the COVID-19 pandemic, as Hungarians linked corruption to underfunded and dysfunctional hospitals.

Ignatieff saw the repression in Hungary firsthand as head of the Central European University, which Orban tried to close for years. Eventually, the elite school moved most of its operations from Budapest to Vienna.

“You rally your base by creating an enemy, inventing an enemy if necessary, and then going after them,” he said. “I think people got sick of it.”

Roger Hilton, a Canadian analyst with the Globsec think tank, based in Vienna, said it will take time for Hungary to rebuild its institutions.

“Undoing this process is something that is really going to be a tedious and cumbersome process for Hungarians, and they need patience to do this,” he said.

As for Ukraine, Hilton said Orban was “disastrous and disruptive” in impeding EU support for Ukraine’s defence from Russia.

Hilton said Hungary repeatedly abstained from or missed EU votes on funding Ukraine’s defence that required all members’ support, and would not allow allies’ military donations to cross Hungary in order to reach Ukraine.

Hilton said it’s not clear how much tangible support Hungary will give Ukraine. Magyar has not been “over the top pro-Ukrainian” in the past, said Hilton, adding he expects him to abstain from EU votes for a 90-billion euro support package for Kyiv.

“He might not be voting for everything, but he’s just not going to be blocking everything,” Hilton said. “They have a lot of work to do to sort of get back to a level where people will engage with them on a higher diplomatic and military level.”

Ignatieff said Magyar echoes many of Orban’s conservative views but wants to restore constitutional democracy, with limits on senior offices and a more independent justice system.

Hilton added that Magyar will be largely focused on Hungary’s domestic economic woes — which likely will be eased by unfreezing EU funds.

Sunday’s vote saw the highest turnout since the end of communism in Hungary in 1989, and came after an array of political parties coalesced to help protect Hungarian democracy. But undoing 16 years of policies that attacked the courts and media will take time, Hilton said.

“I’m not convinced that just because they had this one moment here that the extreme right, or the far right, is going to be stopping,” he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 13, 2026.

— With files from The Associated Press

Dylan Robertson, The Canadian Press