The Guardian view on Hungary’s election: a dismal day for democracy | Editorial

Viktor Orban's fourth consecutive election victory was crushing. But once again it was an unfair fight

What now for the European Union's most challenged and compromised democracy? The scale of Viktor Orban's fourth consecutive election victory in Hungary was crushing, comprehensive and unexpected. Faced for the first time with a united opposition alliance that put internal differences aside, predictions of a close race - or at least a competitive one - were confounded. On a high turnout, Mr Orban's Fidesz party actually won a greater number of seats than it held previously while Peter Marki-Zay, the opposition's candidate for prime minister, failed even to win the local constituency he was contesting. Once again, resistance to Mr Orban's brand of authoritarian, conservative nationalism was largely confined to Budapest and other urban centres.

This is a result that will be mourned in Brussels and celebrated in the Kremlin. After pledging to keep Hungary out of the confrontation between the liberal west and Vladimir Putin's Russia over Ukraine, Mr Orban has a mandate to obstruct and disrupt EU attempts to impose further sanctions on Moscow. At a time when European unity is paramount, that is a problem that western leaders can do without. But at a still more fundamental level, the EU faces the acute dilemma of how to deal with a member state in which democratic norms have been flouted to such an extent that Mr Orban's autocratic rule appears unassailable.