The streets of Budapest have played stage to many a political drama in modern times. In 1956 Soviet tanks rumbled through the Hungarian capital to crush an uprising against communist rule. By 1989 however, Hungarians were again fighting back and among the first to punch a hole in the Iron Curtain as a wave of revolutions across eastern Europe resulted in the end of the communist era.

On a chill spring day just two weeks ago a very different kind of political drama though was enacted in Budapest, as thousands gathered by the banks of the Danube to hear Hungary’s current leader announce another election victory. “We have won,” Prime Minister Viktor Orban declared. “We have given ourselves a chance to defend Hungary.”

Orban had every reason to be happy. Voters had just secured him and his Fidesz party their third consecutive mandate with 48 per cent of the ballot on a record turnout.

On the face of it Orban’s victory was an impressive political win, but look more closely and the results betray a deeply troubling political climate that has many Hungarians and their European Union neighbours worried.

As a politician who projects himself as a saviour of Hungary’s Christian culture against Muslim migration into Europe, Orban’s victory was yet another manifestation of what French President Emmanuel Macron, has described as a “civil war” between the forces of democracy and authoritarianism in Europe.

“There is a fascination with the illiberal and it’s growing all the time,” warned Macron in a speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, where he called on the EU to resist the siren song of populism.

In Hungary these past weeks, it appears many were more than willing to join the populist chorus of the shrill political song that brought Orban’s election victory.

Most Hungary watchers agree that his win was a product of several factors, but that three stand out. The first is the systematic weakening of Hungary’s democratic system and free media. The second is Orban’s venomous ultra-nationalist and anti-immigration platform, while the third factor is an opposition that finds itself in disarray.

For some years now Orban has successfully persuaded his core supporters that only he and his government can protect the country against the “Muslim invasion” and the pernicious influence of outsiders.

In speeches rallying against the “crime and terror” which he claimed migrants brought to Europe, Orban has ignored Brussels’ open door policy and erected fences, proposed migrant camps and promoted the country's own volunteer border patrol militia.

“Today Europe is as fragile, weak and sickly as a flower being eaten away by a hidden worm ... the masses arriving from other civilisations endanger our way of life, our culture, our customs and our Christian traditions,” he told a crowd of supporters.

For the Hungarian Prime Minister there is no shortage of what he sees as malign external influences seemingly hell-bent on doing his country harm. Among them of course are the EU and most recently the United Nations. But there are others too that Orban singles out as perceived threats, notably the Hungarian-born US billionaire and philanthropist George Soros, whom Orban sees as being in cahoots with Western liberals determined to do down and weaken Hungary.

For years now Orban has made no secret of his vision for Hungary as an “illiberal democracy”. His strategy to achieve this was recently outlined in the respected journal Foreign Affairs by political scientist Andras Bir-Nagy, Co-Director of Policy Solutions, a Hungarian think-tank.

“In 2017, he escalated his war on non-governmental organisations with a bill targeting foreign funded NGOs and in a major speech during the 2018 campaign, he promised to hold his opponents morally, politically, and legally accountable after the elections,” explained Bir-Nagy.

So far Orban appears to be doing just that, already implementing wide-ranging steps to clamp down on civil society. Hungarian liberals meanwhile remain beleaguered, fighting a losing battle against his undoubtedly popular message of national exceptionalism.

Nowhere was this more apparent than in his recent election campaign. In the main it was fought on a bitter blend of anti-Muslim, anti-migrant rhetoric, wrapped up in a barely concealed anti-Semitic conspiracy theory. The latter targeting his near obsessive pet hate, philanthropist George Soros - born in Budapest to a well-to-do non-observant Jewish family - whose Open Society Foundations, (OSF) promotes openness and tolerance.

Orban has consistently made clear he would be glad to see the back of the OSF, claiming it promotes mass immigration against the will of the Hungarian people.

But critics of Orban say a departure of the OSF would mark a milestone in a slide towards authoritarian rule as he systematically cracks down on independent centres of thought and activism.

Last week after enormous pressure was brought to bear by the Hungarian government, OSF spokesman Csaba Csontos said the organisation was weighing its options.

“The government has committed to passing the ‘Stop Soros’ law ... It will be a symbolic step which serves to stifle non-government groups,” he said, echoing the concerns of many.

Orban’s response in turn was typical of his uncompromising stance on the issue. “You might understand if I don’t cry my eyes out,” he told state radio, adding that the main issue he and Soros differed on, migration, would remain at the top of the European agenda.

“Orban’s bigoted vision leaves me ashamed to be Hungarian,” well known freelance journalist Kata Karath blogged recently. “What I hate most is the way the Hungarian government tries to define what a ‘real’ Hungarian should be…white, heterosexual, Christian or at least non-Muslim,” said Karath expressing the view shared by many of Orban’s detractors.

In such a febrile atmosphere the opportunity for genuine political debate in Hungary has been seriously curtailed, government critics say. It’s a view shared by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) watchdog that monitored the country’s recent election.

While voters might have had a wide range of political options in this month’s ballot, the OSCE nevertheless concluded that “intimidation, xenophobic rhetoric, media bias and opaque campaign financing, all constricted the space for genuine political debate.”

Such language is of course largely unfamiliar to elections that have taken place within the EU. But then Hungary’s ballot and Orban’s victory were carried out using unorthodox electioneering methods. In a Hungarian economic marketplace dominated by a capitalist elite of oligarchs that have a cosy relationship with Orban, an entire political apparatus has been funded that buys up or takes over opposition news media and win supporters in much the same way that Russian President Vladimir Putin has done.

Indeed many European observers say the parallels between Orban and Putin and the extent of the political relationship between Hungary and Russia is something very much worth watching. As an EU and Nato member, Hungary is no autocracy, but after eight years of Orban's rule, its political system has begun to resemble Russia’s.

Some even go so far as to say that Orban’s government is now playing a role in helping Moscow’s efforts to weaken and divide the EU.

Russian political mischief-making is nothing new of course. For years Moscow has tried to undermine the EU by supporting groups ranging from Catalan separatists in Spain to British Brexit activists, but its support of Orban has been unprecedented in its scale and scope says Owen Matthews, contributing editor and former Moscow Bureau Chief for Newsweek.

“It has included not just propaganda but also sweetheart gas deals, multibillion-dollar loans, strategic investments and covert support for violent far-right hate groups,” Matthews wrote recently in a Newsweek article entitled, The Plot Against Europe: Putin, Hungary and Russia’s New Iron Curtain.

The pay-off for the Kremlin has been huge, argues Matthews, with Orban effectively becoming a pro-Putin voice in Europe, even as the rest of the EU has recoiled from Moscow.

In what former Hungarian Foreign Minister Geza Jeszenszky called “a Trojan horse within the alliance,” he described how Putin “wants to show Nato and the EU that he has a good, reliable friend” in Hungary.

This is all rather ironic given that back in 1989 as Budapest’s streets were once more witness to political drama, Orban was launching his political career with a hard-hitting speech demanding that Soviet forces leave Hungary after more than 40 years of occupation.

“For two decades, Orban was probably the staunchest anti-Russian politician in the whole of eastern Europe,” says Andras Racz, a Russian expert and senior research fellow at the Centre for Strategic and Defence Studies in Budapest.

But all that was to change after he was elected for the second time in 2010, when his public rhetoric on Russia began to take on a positive tone, and today Orban makes no secret of his admiration for Russia's political system.

His talk of Hungary as an “illiberal democracy,” is a phrase that brings Russia's “sovereign democracy” to mind, both being euphemistic terms for an autocratic style of governance.

Given this potential Trojan horse in its midst, the EU has to tread carefully when it comes to Hungary these days. Right now it faces serious challenges in its efforts to halt Hungary’s increasingly authoritarian direction of political travel and erosion of its democratic structures.

But in confronting these challenges, the EU does have a number of political weapons at its disposal. According to Chris Maroshegyi, a director at global business strategy firm the Albright Stonebridge Group and a Fulbright scholar in Budapest, the EU could start by targeting Orban’s oligarchs and financial supporters.

In a recent article on the website of the European Council on Foreign Relations, Maroshegyi argued that Brussels “should use the upcoming negotiations on the EU’s post-2020 tranche of aid to member states to incentivise Orban to clean up his act”. It might also consider involving the EU’s anti-corruption agency, the European Anti-Fraud Office.

Ultimately of course it also has its big stick in the shape of invoking Article 7 sanctions and stripping Hungary of its voting rights. But this requires unanimity from member states. The bloc could also include provisions in its long-term budget that would tie up EU funds. EU aid accounts for up to 6 per cent of Hungarian GDP but predominantly benefits only a small circle of oligarchs. However, passing the EU budget also requires unanimity and that for now is not likely to be forthcoming.

Inside Hungary itself meanwhile, Orban continues to consolidate his grip. His task is made that much easier by the fact that not only is the country’s opposition divided between the left and the far right, but also the left itself is highly fragmented.

For most of the recent 2018 campaign, and despite huge pressure from the majority of Hungarian citizens who wanted change, left-wing and liberal parties competed with each other over who would dominate the left in the future, rather than working together to replace Fidesz.

Orban was also aided in his election victory by Europe’s most disproportionate electoral system, resulting in his Fidesz party winning only 48 per cent of the popular vote, but now enjoying 67 per cent of seats in parliament.

Knowing that the system conspired against them, almost 100,000 Hungarians, notably the young, took to the streets of Budapest in protest at the election results.

“We are the majority,” declared their banners. The majority they might be, but for now it’s Viktor Orban who is calling the shots. The streets of Budapest are almost certain to become the stage yet again for more political drama in the not too distant future.