Analysis: Europe — 09 November 2026
Orbán says Magyar government will collapse by spring, admits Fidesz is not in good shape
Hungarian Conservative published on 9 November remarks by former prime minister Viktor Orbán at a 6 November Municipal Forum in Budapest, about seven months after Fidesz lost power. He told loyalists the new government would be “a defeated government by late spring,” called the sitting prime minister a “court jester” who chose spectacle over “bread,” and said Fidesz is “not in good shape.” He predicted incumbents were being punished across the West, citing even Donald Trump’s midterm defeat, and argued Western competitiveness was collapsing: German heating costs, he said, had risen from 72 cents to two euros per unit. He dismissed the new budget’s 5.6 per cent wage growth and 3 per cent inflation as unrealistic, claimed multinationals would hold back investment, and said Péter Szijjártó and János Lázár were further from taking control than before the election, with MEP Bóka a possible contender.
The remarks sit in a post-defeat holding pattern. Orbán framed Hungary’s 2026 result as part of a broader anti-incumbent cycle rather than a verdict on 16 years of Fidesz rule, while insisting the party’s local organisation and “experience” still favour it. He said the opposition cannot stop “bad governmental decisions” and that Fidesz does not seek to overthrow the government, only to “protect our country from harm.”
The tension is between that wait-and-see strategy and his own diagnosis of party weakness: campaign workers “cannot step forward now,” people have been “forced out or have forced themselves out,” and he would rather be with his grandchildren. Whether economic disappointment materialises on his timetable, and whether a depleted Fidesz can convert it, remains open.
Sources: Hungarian Conservative.
Kraków police source undercuts Tusk government’s far-right claim after Market Square shooting
On 7 November a gunman identified as 24-year-old Michał Oksiński opened fire in Kraków’s Main Market Square, killing six people in public and wounding at least 16, including two police officers; three further bodies, believed to be his parents and sister, were found at his home. Interior minister Marcin Kierwiński said the attacker had been “fascinated by extreme-Right ideologies” and floated putting Warsaw’s 11 November Independence Day march “under review.” UnHerd’s Michal Kranz, writing on 8 November, treated the attack as a break with Poland’s reputation as one of Europe’s safest countries and a possible opening to a new era of political violence, coming days after Tusk’s clash with President Karol Nawrocki over the Constitutional Tribunal.
By Sunday that official line was contested. Hungarian Conservative reported a Kraków police source telling Rzeczpospolita that material, including photographs with flags, suggested Oksiński “may be ultraleft-wing.” Super Express, citing several sources, found no links to far-right parties or extremist groups. Prosecutor Piotr Sokół said there was no evidence of active political or extremist activity; Prosecutor General Waldemar Żurek said no manifesto had been found. Conservative commentators accused the government of exploiting the deaths before the facts were settled; the far-right claim had already been amplified by some MEPs.
Fact and framing have diverged. The shooting is established; the motive is not. Analysis: pinning it on the right while a tribunal crisis is still raw invites a backlash if investigators do not corroborate Kierwiński. The open question is whether Warsaw walks back the Independence March threat or doubles down.
Sources: UnHerd, Hungarian Conservative.