'Operation Purgatory': Magyar moves to demolish Orban system

'Operation Purgatory': Magyar moves to demolish Orban system June 26, 2026Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar and his government are setting a fast pace of reform. In his first few weeks in office, Magyar kept his promise to bring Hungary back to Europe. He lifted EU blockades introduced by his predecessor, Viktor Orban, and launched a dialogue with Ukraine, which Orban had labeled "The Empire of Evil." Back home in Budapest, the parliament approved cuts to the salaries of lawmakers and ministers and limited a prime minister's time in office to a maximum two terms. Much of this was anti-Orban symbolism. But with these changes under his belt, Magyar has now turned his attention to the substance of his predecessor's regime. Orban had laid plans that stretched decades into the future: In the event of his party losing the election, civil servants who would be difficult to replace would sabotage the work of new governments. In addition, billions had been squirreled away to continue financing Orban's network. Taking the Orban system apart piece by piece Thanks to a comfortable two-thirds majority in parliament, the government of Magyar and his Tisza party can now dismantle these structures. In an address to parliament on Monday, Magyar called Orban's style of rule the "mafia system." He promised to root it out completely using what he called "Operation Purgatory," a name that likely comes from Magyar's penchant for religious and historical symbols. Magyar has promised that comprehensive investigations will be conducted to establish how Orban's family and friends as well as oligarchs and high-ranking party members lined their pockets and that illegally obtained assets will be recovered. He has also pledged that state institutions, the judiciary and the media will be reformed in such a way that renders it impossible to return to the Orban system — i.e. to the political control of state institutions and the public. "Orban wanted to tie the hands of the next ten governments," said the online news outlet 444.hu. "The Magyar administration is now ripping up that plan." First package of laws passed On Tuesday, the parliament passed a first large package of laws relating to "Operation Purgatory." Most of them were anti-corruption measures. These were key to ensuring that the European Union releases about €17 billion ($19.3 billion) in EU funding for Hungary that was frozen by Brussels because of a perceived risk of corruption during Orban's time in power. The timing was very important because a deadline for the payment of one large tranche of these funds, some €10.4 billion, passes in August. One of the most important measures is the abolition of what is known as public interest asset management foundations (KEKVA), private foundations that hold and manage universities, cultural institutions and historical monuments in Hungary. Symbol of kleptocracy The KEVKAs were founded during Orban's time in office for the purpose of shifting huge amounts of public assets — some €5-9 billion — into private hands. The foundations are symbolic of the kleptocratic system under Orban. At the same time, some of these foundations were used to put a new administrative structure in place at most Hungarian universities. These structures were then filled with Orban loyalists, thereby destroying the autonomy of the universities in question. The best-known KEVKA in Hungary is the Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), the most important elite training and propaganda school for Orban's Fidesz party. In 2020, at the instigation of the Orban government, the MCC was gifted 10% of the state's shares in both the oil company MOL and the pharmaceutical company Richter Gedeon. In total, the gift was worth an estimated €1.3 billion. Greater transparency in the tender process In addition to these laws, the new parliament has also given greater powers to the so-called "Integrity Authority" and tightened the rules governing how politicians and senior civil servants declare their assets and the obligation of transparency and accountability in public tenders. During Orban's time in power, tenders were one of the most important means of corruption and self-enrichment. For example, the company's belonging to Orban's schoolfriend, Lorinc Meszaros, who started out as a plumber and gasfitter in the village where Orban was born and become a billionaire and Hungary's richest man under the former PM, benefitted from such tenders. He is often referred to as "Orban's wallet." Media reform The parliament also kept another of Magyar's electoral promises on Tuesday when it approved a reorganization of public service media in Hungary and introduced a sweeping restriction of political hate campaigns using nationwide poster campaigns and ads, which were par for the course in Orban's Hungary. During Orban's 16-year rule, public service media became broadcasters of propaganda and fake news. Despite their legal obligation to report objectively, voices other than Fidesz rarely ever featured in their programs. The old holding companies for public service media are now being abolished and replaced by new bodies that will include not only politicians, but also representatives of journalistic organizations. Society's need to see justice being done First steps toward other important legislation and a constitutional reform were also taken this week. Most independent Hungarian observers consider the most important of all these laws to be the one relating to the planned establishment of the Office for the Recovery and Protection of National Assets (NVVH). This was one of Magyar's most important electoral promises: to get back the billions that went into the pockets of people close to Orban during his time in office in an untransparent and often unlawful manner and to bring these people to court. Speaking in a podcast on 24.hu, political scientist Gabor Torok referred to the planned establishment of the NVVH as the "most important political measure" of the Magyar government because, he said, it meets society's need to see "handcuffs being slapped on wrists." This, he went on, is something that no Hungarian government since the collapse of communism in 1989/90 has achieved. Magyar's triple challenge The intention is that there will now be a debate in society about the establishment of the NVVH — something that never happened in Orban's "illiberal democracy." The same is true of the constitutional changes Magyar is planning, including the ousting of President Tamas Sulyok, whom Peter Magyar has described as a "puppet of the Orban regime," and limiting lawmakers to a maximum of three terms in parliament. This last proposal in particular has met with criticism in Hungary. Writing on the website Social Europe, foreign policy expert Zsuzsanna Szelenyi, who in the early 1990s was a member of Orban's then liberal Fidesz party, said that "Magyar's government must navigate what might be called the 'post-illiberal trilemma'" of "swiftly reversing the damage of illiberal rule, preventing a populist resurgence, and strictly observing constitutional norms." "Balancing speed, efficiency, and legality," she said, "is essential to Hungary's re-democratization." This article was originally published in German.