Audio 25

Tobias Haberkorn talks to Zoltán Ádám, a political economist based in Budapest, about the landslide defeat of Viktor Orbán in Hungary's 2026 parliamentary election. They discuss what it actually means to dismantle a system Orbán spent sixteen years building, whether Peter Magyar and his Tisza party have the tools and the will to restore liberal democracy, and what Hungary's experience reveals about the fragility of democratic institutions everywhere. They also talk about the international far right's investment in Orbán, the legal gray zone of the transition period, and what Zoltán — who lost his own university position under the Orbán government — expects to change now that it's over.

Read Zoltán Ádám's essay "The Morning After Orbán" in Berlin Review: https://blnreview.de/en/ausgaben/2026-04/zoltan-adam-the-morning-after-orban-elections-hungary

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Airlift is produced in the Studio of Jacobin Germany.

Hosted by Tobias Haberkorn, Editor of Berlin Review.