Can Hungary’s Democracy Recover from its Systematic Dismantling by Viktor Orbán?

The former Prime Minister did not destroy democracy outright – he re-engineered it into a system in which elections continue but meaningful political competition does not. His successor faces a complex dilemma of how to reform such a regime, writes James Bloodworth

‘So far, wait and see,” as one EU diplomat put it, summing up Brussels’ cautious response to Hungary’s newly elected Prime Minister, Péter Magyar. “That might change, considering the things he says and does.”

The jubilant scenes that greeted Magyar and his Tisza party’s election victory in April are already giving way to something more sober. It is the political equivalent of the morning after the night before.

How does democracy disappear? Gradually, and then suddenly.