Orbán's fall is good news for the Czech Republic as well. Not only because of Europe, but also because of what he made of queer people
Sunday's parliamentary elections in Hungary marked the end of one of the most influential and dangerous political eras in Central Europe today. After 16 years in power, Viktor Orbán lost to the opposition Tisza party led by Péter Magyar. According to Reuters and the AP, it was a crushing defeat, with a high turnout approaching 80 percent and Tisza winning such a strong mandate that it can rewrite the rules of the game that Orbán's Fidesz has bent in its favour for years. This in itself does not mean that Hungary will become a liberal paradise overnight. But it means something perhaps even more important - that even a seemingly unshakable system built on fear, culture wars and the gradual disintegration of institutions can fall.
It is worth recalling why Orbán's defeat is so crucial. For this was not just another conservative prime minister who had a 'different view' on LGBT+ people. Orbán systematically turned the queer community into a political tool. Reuters recalls that over the years his government has rewritten the constitution, restricted the independence of the judiciary, reshaped the media landscape, while styling itself as a defender of "Christian values" against alleged "gender and LGBT ideology". This is not a cultural debate but a strategy of power. Find a minority, label it as a threat and mobilise voters through demonising it.
When a minority becomes a political tool
Moreover, it was clearly visible on the Hungarian queer people that Fidesz did not just attack with words. In 2020, the Hungarian parliament banned transgender people from changing their gender on official documents. Reuters described at the time that the change, replacing the term gender with "sex at birth", put trans people at risk of greater discrimination and daily humiliation. In the same year, the Orbán regime constitutionally redefined the family to mean "mother is female, father is male" and effectively closed adoptions to same-sex couples. A year later came the infamous law which, under the pretext of protecting children, banned content in schools and advertising that purported to 'promote homosexuality or gender reassignment'. Critics rightly pointed out that the state was effectively conflating queer existence with something dangerous and inappropriate.
And because it worked politically for Orbán, he went even harder. In March 2025, he pushed through a law that created a legal basis for banning Pride and allowed police to use facial recognition to identify participants. Then, in April of that year, Fidesz pushed through constitutional amendments that put "child protection" above other rights and enshrined Hungary's recognition of only two genders, male and female. This was no longer a symbolic war of language. This was a direct attack on the freedom of assembly, privacy and public visibility of queer people. The Orbán regime sent a very clear message: not only do we not like you, but we want to push you out of the public space.
Laws that did not target 'ideology' but specific people
It is no coincidence that it is precisely because of these steps that Hungary has fallen to its worst ever position in the ranking of the human rights watchdog ILGA-Europe. In 2025, according to Rainbow Map, it had only 23 points and fell to 37th out of 49 European countries, and the organisation explicitly linked the drop to the Pride ban and other anti-queer legislative interventions. More importantly, however, something else - even European institutions no longer accepted Orbán's argument about "protecting children". Last year, the Advocate General of the CJEU, Tamara Ćapeta, said that Hungarian legislation violated EU law, interfering with the prohibition of discrimination, private and family life, freedom of expression and human dignity, and that Hungary had not produced evidence that the common portrayal of LGBT+ people's lives harmed children. So even at the European legal level, it has begun to be made clear that this is not about protecting children, but about institutionalised stigmatisation.
This is why Orbán's defeat is also important for the Czech Republic. Not because Prague and Budapest can be mechanically compared, but because Central Europe functions as a space of political imitation. Orbán has been proof for years that it pays to combine nationalism, attacks on the media, talk of sovereignty and the manufacture of moral panics about sexual minorities. Such a policy then works not only at home but also abroad, and becomes a model, an argument and an inspiration. When such a model fails in one country, it weakens its appeal elsewhere. Orbán's defeat is therefore also news for the Czech public environment. It shows that the culture war is not destiny and that using queer people as an electoral target does not have to be a path to eternal power.
A defeat that goes beyond the borders of Hungary
It is also important for the Czech Republic for a more concrete reason. While the Czech environment is not repressive on the issue of LGBT+ rights in Hungary, it is not finished here either. Last year, ILGA-Europe recorded a shift for the Czech Republic by extending rights to same-sex couples, but at the same time continues to recommend the adoption of marriage equality and fuller protection in other areas. And it was the Czech Republic that was among the seventeen EU states that publicly warned in May 2025 that Hungary's anti-LGBT+ laws contradicted the EU's core values. So the Czech Republic was no longer a passive observer, but part of Europe's defence against queer people becoming a victim group in the "protection of civilisation". Orbán's fall is therefore not just a Hungarian domestic political event. It is also a relief for a country that itself has not yet resolved full equality, but at the same time has to choose which side of the value argument it stands on.
At the same time, it is fair not to succumb to euphoria. The AP recalls that the winner of the election, Péter Magyar, avoided clear statements on Orbán's anti-LGBTQ policies during the campaign and that he is a conservative politician, not a new progressive saviour. This is important to say out loud, because Orbán's defeat is not yet a victory for marriage for all, nor a guarantee that Hungary will quickly fix all that Fidesz has destroyed. But it is the end of the reign of a man who made queer existence a state problem, Pride a security threat, and human dignity an object of ideological warfare. And sometimes this is the first, necessary and historical condition for any further change.
Lessons for the Czech Republic: where the politics of fear leads
For the Czech Republic, Orbán's fall is ultimately important in an even broader sense. His regime was not only a problem for LGBT+ people, but also for European unity, the rule of law and the security architecture of the region. For years, Orbán has blocked or obstructed EU joint action, clashed with Brussels over democratic standards, and maintained proximity to Russia at a time when cohesion is key for Central Europe. From the Czech perspective, then, this is not just about moral satisfaction at the defeat of a politician who bullied minorities. It is also about weakening a model that combines internal authoritarianism with external destabilisation of Europe. And that is good news for all those who do not want to live in a region where human rights are exchanged for cheap slogans about order and national pride.
If there is one thing to take away from the Hungarian elections, it is this - an attack on queer people is never 'just' an attack on queer people. It is a test of how much humiliation, censorship and fear a society is willing to accept when a government promises it a sense of security and an easy enemy. In this sense, Orbán has not just lost as prime minister. He has also lost the political method that makes minorities a backdrop for power. And that is why this is important not only for Budapest, but also for Brno, Ostrava, Prague and the entire Czech Republic.
