One of the top two eastern European autocrats favored by Fox host Tucker Carlson has won reelection: Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a nationalist authoritarian whom Carlson praised during his trips to the nation, was reelected to fourth term. Orban’s Fidesz party leads the vote with 55.7% of votes versus 32.5% for Peter Marki-Zay’s six-party opposition alliance.
Reuters reports that Orban’s odds of winning plummeted after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but Orban then changed messaging to say the opposition alliance led by moderate Marki-Zay would drag the nation into war with Russia.
Orban stated that Marki-Zay’s proposals to strengthen Western connections would pull Hungary, which shares a small portion of its border with Ukraine, into war with Russia if Hungary was used as a transit to supply arms to Ukraine.