Is Orbán planning to emigrate to the U.S.?

We haven’t heard much from the AfD since the crushing defeat of its international champion, Viktor Orbán. Just before the election, Alice Weidel had expressed confidence in victory on the platform X: “Viktor Orbán will win!” But the campaign support from the united Global Right and Orbán’s closeness to U.S. President Donald Trump likely did him more harm than good. Critics of a Trump-friendly, “transatlantic” course seized on the defeat to reiterate their familiar objections and warn against a “classically Western-oriented right-wing conservatism” (Benedikt Kaiser) à la Meloni and Le Pen.

The European far right remains divided on this issue, and this also places the AfD leadership in a foreign policy dilemma. However, the notion that the AfD is therefore “suddenly” distancing itself from Viktor Orbán, as nd reported, and is now aligning with the further-right Mi Hazánk Mozgalom (MHM—Homeland Movement), is an overreach. MHM has been a member of the AfD’s European Parliament faction, Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN), since its inception and has long been embraced by parts of the party, such as Maximilian Krah and Björn Höcke. On the far right, opportunism simply trumps pure doctrine when in doubt: MHM is the ideological sister party; Orbán managed the spoils and access to power.

Following Péter Magyar’s decisive victory in Hungary’s presidential election, he has repeatedly made it clear that he is prepared to dismantle the old Orbán system—both in terms of personnel and institutions—including with the help of the judiciary. In his first speech following his election victory, Magyar called on President Tamás Sulyok, the President of the Supreme Court, the Attorney General, and the heads of the media regulatory authority and the competition authority to resign. Orbán had also illegally funded the CPAC conferences, which took place several times in Budapest, with public funds, which was criminal: “I believe the state should never have financed them in the first place; it was a crime. Mixing party financing with government spending from the state budget is, in my view, a criminal offense, and this will have to be investigated by the future authorities, including the National Office for the Recovery and Protection of Public Assets, since those budgetary funds were not meant to finance party events.” The state will also cease funding other institutions linked to Orbán—Magyar specifically named the Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC).

Regardless of the outcome of legal investigations or the suspension of financial aid, the extent of the damage to the global right-wing movement caused by Orbán’s defeat remains unclear. However, fear of becoming a victim of Magyar’s announcement that he intends to “clean up” the “mafia state” is spreading throughout Hungary. Viktor Orbán is reportedly preparing for an extended stay in the U.S., which could also be interpreted as an attempt to flee from the justice system. Former Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, who was granted asylum in Hungary to escape prosecution in his home country, has already arrived there.