Strongman Watch
Viktor Orbán
Elected leader who has openly described building an "illiberal democracy" since returning to power in 2010.
Viktor Orbán returned to Hungary's premiership in 2010 with a two-thirds parliamentary majority that allowed his Fidesz party to rewrite the country's constitution. In a widely cited 2014 speech, Orbán himself described his project as building an "illiberal state" within the European Union, a framing subsequently used by scholars studying democratic backsliding across the region, including in the academic literature on the subject.
His government has restructured the judiciary, consolidated the majority of Hungary's media landscape under allied ownership, and redrawn electoral districts in ways independent analysts say favor Fidesz. The European Union has withheld billions of euros in funding over rule-of-law concerns, and Hungary is frequently cited alongside Poland as a central case study in European democratic erosion, though Poland's own backsliding was reversed by a 2023 opposition election victory.