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Viktor Orbán built a 'propaganda machine.' Hungary's next leader must dismantle it
April 19, 2026
Posted 2 hours ago by
As thousands swarmed the streets of Budapest last weekend to celebrate the defeat of Viktor Orbán, Balasz said he could not help thinking of his great-grandmother – now in her 80s, living in a rural town in Hungary's deprived east. For her, having consumed little but state media for the past decade, the victory of Péter Magyar was not cause for joy, but for crippling fear.
Throughout Orbán's re-election campaign, the media controlled by his governing Fidesz party depicted Magyar as a reckless enemy of peace, bent on dragging Hungary into the war in neighboring Ukraine. Balasz, a 42-year-old financial analyst who only gave his first name, said he was shocked by the extremity of the lies his great-grandmother was told each day – how, if Magyar won, Hungarian men would be conscripted, the economy would collapse, and a third world war would surely follow.
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