In a landslide victory in the April 12 elections, Hungarian opposition candidate Péter Magyar [21] defeated long-entrenched incumbent Prime Minister Viktor Orbán [22], a global icon for the ascendant authoritarian right. In his 16 years in power, Orbán turned the state media into a mouthpiece for his Hungarian Civic Alliance (Fidesz [23]), redrew electoral districts to favor Fidesz, and stacked the judiciary with loyalists—leading the EuroParliament in an official report in 2022 to decalre that his government was no longer a democracy but a "hybrid regime of electoral autocracy [24]." He was defeated despite visits to Hungary to campaign for him by such prominent figures from the international right as Italy's Matteo Salvini [25], Marine Le Pen [22] of France, and US Vice President JD Vance [26]. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hailed the electoral result as a "victory for fundamental freedoms."
Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged [27] Magyar's incoming government to take immediate steps to restore democratic norms in Hungary. The organization called for the immediate dissolution of the Sovereignty Protection Office [28], a body established in 2023 with broad powers to investigate journalists, civil organizations, and academics that receive foreign funding. HRW also pressed for an end to emergency decree powers [29] that have allowed Orbán's executive to bypass parliamentary debate since 2020.
HRW urged the incoming government to drop criminal charges against Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony [30], prosecuted for holding the city's Pride March last June, in defiance of a ban imposed by Orbán's government, and against Géza Buzás-Hábel [31], organizer of the Pride march in Pécs.
Orbán's measures against dissent of course mirror those of Vladimir Putin [32], and indeed his defeat dimishes an emerging pro-Russian bloc on the continent, also including Slovakia [33] and (outside the EU) Serbia [34] and Belarus [35]. The fall of Orbán is expected to free up a €17 billion loan to Ukraine that his government had effecitvely blocked.
However, Péter Magyar is a creature of the center-right, and a former Orbán ally. His Respect & Freedom (Tisza [36]) party broke from Fidesz in 2020, in response to Orbán's growing authoritarianism. His proclivities are fundamnetally conservative, and he may not mean a full de-Orbánification. In a bad sign, Magyar on April 15 held what the Israeli Foreign Ministry called a "warm introductory phone call" with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, pointing to a continuity in ties. Orbán's Hungary and Donald Trump's United States are the only two countries Netanyahu has been able to safely visit since the International Criminal Court issued a warrant [37] for him to face war crimes charges in November 2024.
Nonetheless, among those around the world taking courage [38] in the fall of Orbán are the Israeli protesters who have mounted a campaign of militant demonstrations [39] against Netanyahu and his wars. (Jurist [40], JP [41], PRI [42], EuroNews [43])
Sidelined by the world media spotlight, a more stark struggle with stakes just as high for the survival of democratic norms is emerging in the South American nation of Peru. As Hungarians voted, so did Peruvians, in a crowded field of 35 candidates following years of political chaos [44] that have seen 10 presidents in as many years [45]. Leading the field was Keiko Fujimori [46], longtime candidate of the hard-right Fuerza Popular [47].
Keiko is the daughter of ex-dictator Alberto Fujimori, who shamefully died a free man [48] in December 2024, having been released [49] from prison after 17 years following a pardon for his convictions for corruption and human rights abuses. The younger Fujimori remained an unabashed supporter of the elder to the very end, and her potential election promises a reversal of the process of de-Fujimorification that Peru has undergone since the fall of his eight-year period of strongman rule in 2000.
A decision on who Keiko Fujimori would face in a run-off was delayed by several days after the National Office of Electoral Process [50] (ONPE) found that a private contractor failed to deliver ballots to dozens of polling stations across the province of Lima, preventing more than 52,000 citizens from voting on time. One of her two leading contenders, former Lima mayor Rafael López Aliaga [51], alleged [52] widespread fraud and called for the vote to be annulled. The EU election observer mission reported [53] that it had found no evidence of fraud. But tension mounted as his supporters mobilized to the street.
López Aliaga, known by his appropriate nickname "Porky," is also a figure of the hard right, although of a more Catholic bent than Fujimori, and has similarly run on pledges of a harsh crackdown on soaring crime and the narco economy. In an echo of Trump's Alligator Alcatraz [54], he has proposed building penal colonies in the Amazon rainforest, surrounded by a moat filled with vipers.
He has not dropped his demands for annullment, but it now emerges that Fujimori will face a contender from the left in the June 7 run-off. This is Roberto Sánchez Palomino [55] of Juntos por el Perú [56]. Sánchez is the political heir of imprisoned [57] ex-president Pedro Castillo, a political outsider of campesino origins whose 2021 election shook up Peru's establishment. Castillo's ouster and detention [57] by order of Congress the following year ended his contentious rule and sparked weeks of protests that were met with massive deadly repression [58]. Sánchez, who had served in Castillo's cabinet, similarly ran with strong support from rural Andean regions, traditionally exlcuded from Peruvian politics, and similarly wears a traditional campesino sombrero.
There is a sense of deju vu here, as Keiko Fujimori has made it as far as a presidential run-off in 2011, 2016 and 2021. During the first run, she brought in Rudolph Giuliani [59] as "national security advisor." In the second run (taking place five months before Trump was first elected [60] here in Gringolandia), she was defeated by the center-right Pedro Pablo Kuczynski after Verónika Mendoza, the left-wing candidate who was bumped out of the race in the first round, threw her support behind him [61] to avoid a re-Fujimorification of the country. As persident, it was Kuczynski who pardoned [62] Alberto Fujimori, in a betrayal of the progressive-minded Peruvians who had helped elect him.
With the center now having effectively collapsed in Peruvian politics, this kind of outcome, at least, is excluded from possibility. However, a win by Keiko Fujimori on her fourth try for the presidency portends a far worse outcome. (Americas Quarterly [63], Jurist [64], France24 [65], France24 [52], AFP [52], Reuters [66])
Peru may seem far removed from the world stage compared to Hungary, but the Great Powers are definitely playing their chess game here as well. Florida Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar [67] has called on Peru's next government to "take back" the Chinese-controlled port of Chancay [68], portraying the deepwater facility as a military threat to the hemisphere. Salazar, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, said during a hearing on April 16 that Washington must help Peru wrest the megaport from Chinese hands. "The new Peruvian government, which will be elected next June, must take it back, that port, take it back, and the United States will help them," Salazar said.
She argued that the port, just up the coast from Lima, has "dual usage" potential, meaning it could shift from commercial to military operations, allowing Chinese submarines, battleships and aircraft carriers to operate from Peru's territory. (SCMP [69])
Even a new President Fujimori would be unlikely to take this bait from Washington, as China, like the US, is a free-trade partner [70] of Peru and top investor in its lucrative mineral sector. But there's much contention about Chinese versus North American influence in the country. The last interim president, José Jerí, who had faced a wave of Gen Z protests [71] last year, was finally removed by Congress [72] this February following unregistered meetings with two Chinese businessmen. The incumbent interim president José María Balcázar is of the left, and popular anger at Peru's traditional political class is palpable.
Whether it is the populist left of Sánchez or the populist right of Fujimori that prevails, the Great Power pressures on Peru will remain. The implications for Peru internally, however, will be very different—and this also has regional implications, as the right has made recent electoral gains throughout Latin America: just over the past months, in Chile [73], Bolivia [74] and Costa Rica [75]. A new right-authoritarian bloc is emerging, just as the Trump regime is launching new adventures in gunboat diplomacy [76].
