All right, Alexander, let's talk about the elections in Hungary and the landslide victory of Peter Magyar

and his Teza party over Orban and Fidesh.

Alexander, your thoughts on these election results.

Well, we have had a lot of opinion polls pointing to this result, so one cannot

say that it was unexpected. I'm going to make a number of observations about this. Now,

Viktor Orbán has been the dominant figure in Hungary for 16 years.

Over that length of time, inevitably there is a change in the circumstances that brought him to power 16 years ago.

Few people remember them, more people in any political system

begin to develop resentments and concerns about what the leader, the government has

been doing. You usually see over a period of 16 years a certain swing away from a leader who has been there as long as he has.

But there are a lot of other things that I think have to be said about this election.

Firstly, we went to Hungary together in November 24. At that time, people were already talking about the fact that Peter Marguer looked like a potential threat to Orban's massive political dominance in Hungary.

The people we spoke to were all agreed that Marois,

who was a former ally of Orban's in Fidesh,

the dominant party in Hungary, that Marois had basically gone over to the other side,

that this was yet another of the many attempts that Orban's adversaries in Brussels had put together

to try to bring, not just Orban down, but to bring Hungary back in line.

About that, I personally have no doubt.

But there were considerable hopes in November 2024 when we were there,

that not only would Orban's, the goodwill that Orban still had within Hungary

helped him to see off this challenge,

but the fact that Trump had just been elected,

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