Two fallen strongmen, one vow: Orbán and Vučić meet in Belgrade and promise to return
Six months ago, Viktor Orbán lost power in Hungary after 16 years. Last Sunday, Aleksandar Vučić lost power in Serbia after 14 years of rule by his party. On Saturday 31 October, the two men met in Belgrade, posted a video together, and told the world they are not finished. “We will return,” Vučić said. It was their first meeting since both were voted out — and a reminder that in both countries, the hardest part of the story is still to come.
The meeting was short, informal and heavy with meaning. Vučić hosted Orbán at his father’s house near Belgrade, called him “my great friend, my brother”, and said that although both men had recently lost elections, they had “not lost our dignity, our pride and our faith”. Orbán thanked him and promised: “You can be sure, personally, Aleksandar, that I am always on your side.” Neither man said how a return to power would happen.
At a glance
What happened: On Saturday 31 October 2026, former Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán visited former Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić in Belgrade, days after Vučić’s party lost Serbia’s snap parliamentary election on 25 October. In a video Vučić posted online, the two men said they had lost elections but not their dignity, pride and faith — and Vučić added: “We will return.”
Why it matters: Orbán and Vučić were two of Europe’s longest-serving nationalist leaders, in power for 16 and 14 years. Both were voted out within six months of each other by youth-driven movements that used the same tactics: high turnout, smart use of data and tens of thousands of election monitors. Their meeting shows the old guard is already organising its comeback — while both men may face prosecution for corruption and abuse of power.
What happens next: Serbia repeats voting at 53 polling stations on Sunday 1 November, after which final results can be declared and a new parliament formed. A presidential election must be held in Serbia by 27 December. In Hungary, Orbán remains leader of his Fidesz party. Both men have predicted they will return to power; Vučić has said his party could be back within two years.
The meeting in Belgrade
The visit came less than a week after Vučić’s defeat. He had resigned as Serbia’s president on 27 September to lead his party’s list in the snap parliamentary election on 25 October, and conceded on election night when it became clear his United Serbia list had lost.
Vučić posted a joint video of the visit on Instagram. In it, he said he was glad to host Orbán at his father’s house near Belgrade. “And yes, we both recently lost elections, but we have not lost our dignity, our pride and our faith,” he said. Orbán replied: “Friends always remain friends, and in hard times you gain better friends. You can be sure, personally, Aleksandar, that I am always on your side.”
Orbán added that improving ties between Serbia and Hungary — even “brotherhood” between Serbs and Hungarians — was a great achievement, and said he remained committed to continuing it. Vučić answered: “Thank you, we will return.” The pledge to return came from Vučić, not Orbán, although reports of the meeting said both men plan to return to politics.
The trip was described as a private visit. Before Belgrade, Orbán had visited Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik in Banja Luka on Friday 30 October. Vučić had already signalled the meeting was coming: on 27 October he said he expected to meet Orbán in Belgrade within days, saying “we will fight together, and we will succeed relatively soon”. He also predicted that his Serbian Progressive Party could return to power within two years.
Vučić said on 29 October that Orbán was the first foreign politician to call him after he conceded defeat. Clash Report also reported that Vučić denied a report that he had planned to overturn the election result by force, and that Orbán had talked him out of it.
Two defeats, six months apart
Orbán fell first. In Hungary’s parliamentary election on Sunday 12 April 2026, Péter Magyar’s Tisza party won a two-thirds majority, ending Orbán’s 16 years as prime minister. His Fidesz party fell from 135 seats to 52. Orbán declined to take up his seat in parliament, but he remains leader of Fidesz after party delegates re-elected him on 13 June for another year.
Vučić’s fall came almost exactly six months later. He had called Serbia’s snap parliamentary election after nearly two years of student-led protests, and resigned as president on 27 September to lead his party’s list. On Sunday 25 October, the Student List — a slate of 250 political newcomers chosen by university students — won about 53 per cent of the vote, against roughly 39 per cent for Vučić’s United Serbia list, according to preliminary figures.
The two defeats even shared a clock. Vučić admitted defeat at exactly 21:30 on Sunday evening — just as Orbán had done on 12 April. Few observers expected either leader to concede peacefully.
There is another strange numerical similarity. The Student List will hold 140 seats in the 250-seat Serbian parliament — the same number that Magyar’s Tisza party won in the 199-seat Hungarian parliament.
How both men fell: the same playbook
A BBC analysis published on 1 November described Vučić’s defeat as “a carbon copy” of Orbán’s fall. The two countries, the two movements and the two results look strikingly alike — and that is no accident. The Hungarians helped teach the Serbs how to win.
The Tisza party in Hungary and the Student List in Serbia look very different. Tisza is centred on the personality and energy of its leader, Péter Magyar, while the students in Serbia insist they have no leadership. But both victories were driven by huge turnouts — 79 per cent in Hungary and 69 per cent in Serbia — powered by tech-savvy young people. They used artificial intelligence tools to crunch numbers, spot threats to the vote, and mobilise tens of thousands of election monitors to prevent intimidation and electoral fraud by the governing parties.
The cooperation was direct. During the summer, even before the Serbian election was called, Hungarian activists held workshops to share their experience and methods from the Hungarian election with the Serbian students. Then, last weekend, the DE civic action group in Hungary sent 70 election monitors to Serbia, to work with student movement representatives, visiting polling stations in the northern Serbian province of Vojvodina.
A key technique was to identify “infected” polling districts in advance — places where the surprisingly high number of votes for the governing party at previous elections suggested voter intimidation or “chain voting”. “From around 16:00 on election day, we noticed groups of masked hooligans — Vučić supporters — gathering near voting stations,” Péter Klemm, a student activist from Subotica, told the BBC. “So we sent mobile teams, and started filming everything.” With 20 to 30 volunteers at each threatened polling station, Klemm believes, intimidation was prevented.
The link between the two movements was personal as well as practical. Magyar was the only European leader to ring the students directly to congratulate them on election night. “It is always good to hear that the story of Tisza could provide an inspiration for other nations,” Magyar told the BBC. “The result of the Hungarian election clearly showed us that what we are doing here is right,” Ilija Srdanović, the head of the Student List, said on the eve of the vote.
“There was a perception in Europe that the longer the Orbán and Vučić regimes stayed in office, the stronger they got,” Áron Timar, founder of the DE civic action group in Hungary, told the BBC. “In fact they got weaker. And once society found its voice and rose up, there was no way of stopping it.”
What the two leaders had in common
Orbán and Vučić did not just fall in the same way — they governed in similar ways, and they were close allies. When they met in northern Serbia last November, they could hardly have guessed they would both be out of power within a year.
Both were powerful leaders who had taken over state institutions and built business empires overlapping the two countries. Over lunch in Subotica almost a year ago, they talked about oil and other business deals — including the planned Hungarian purchase of Serbia’s NIS oil refinery. The two nationalist leaders found much in common in business and politics, not least their friendship with Vladimir Putin in Russia and Chinese President Xi Jinping, and their strong support for Milorad Dodik, the separatist leader of the Bosnian Serbs.
A high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest is being built with Chinese finance and know-how. Hungarian companies close to Orbán were also involved in the Novi Sad railway station construction project. The collapse of the station’s canopy on 1 November 2024 — blamed on corruption, as well as negligence — killed 16 people, and acted as the catalyst for the Serbian student movement that would go on to defeat Vučić.
For the Kremlin, the result comes as another setback after Orbán. Vučić had cultivated close relations with Moscow for years, refused to join European Union sanctions after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and benefited from Russian diplomatic support over Kosovo. But a change in that balancing act appears unlikely. The Student List has explicitly ruled out sanctions against Moscow, pledged to preserve military neutrality and rejected NATO membership. Russia supplies around 2.2 billion cubic metres of gas to Serbia each year at favourable prices, and the existing Russian gas agreement expires in December.
What happens next for both men
The immediate question is whether either man will face the courts. Orbán, 63, and Vučić, 56, may now both face prosecution for corruption and abuse of power. The judicial machinery in both countries is similar. Serbia’s special prosecution service for organised crime, JTOK, and Hungary’s brand new special prosecutors, known as NVVH, have similar powers. They could prove useful to each other.
In Serbia, the new government’s first moves are already under way. The students’ newly elected MPs have demanded the immediate dismissal of police officers who broke the law, singling out the heads of the police, the BIA intelligence agency and the anti-terror unit. They also want changes in the judiciary, urgent investigations into top-level corruption cases, and a review of all public contracts and state spending. The head of the state broadcaster RTS has already stepped down.
But the students must now prove they can govern. Their movement grew out of protest, and governing will demand something different: clearer leadership and collective discipline. Most of their representatives have little experience of government or parliament, and the identity of the next prime minister is still unknown. The new parliament must meet within 30 days of the final results, and once it is constituted it has 90 days to elect a government.
Frequently asked questions
Who are Viktor Orbán and Aleksandar Vučić?
Viktor Orbán was Hungary’s prime minister for 16 years, from 2010 until his Fidesz party lost the parliamentary election on 12 April 2026. Aleksandar Vučić was Serbia’s central political figure for 14 years — prime minister from 2014 to 2017, then president — until his party lost Serbia’s snap parliamentary election on 25 October 2026.
What did the two men say when they met in Belgrade?
Vučić hosted Orbán at his father’s house near Belgrade on 31 October and posted a video of the visit online. He said both men had recently lost elections but had “not lost our dignity, our pride and our faith”, and added: “We will return.” Orbán said friends remain friends in hard times and promised he was “always on your side”.
How did Orbán lose power in Hungary?
Péter Magyar’s Tisza party won a two-thirds majority in Hungary’s parliamentary election on 12 April 2026, with turnout of 79 per cent. Fidesz fell from 135 seats to 52. Orbán conceded at 21:30 on election night. He declined to take up his seat in parliament but remains leader of Fidesz.
How did Vučić lose power in Serbia?
The Student List, a slate of 250 political newcomers chosen by university students, won about 53 per cent of the vote in Serbia’s snap election on 25 October 2026, against about 39 per cent for Vučić’s United Serbia list. Turnout was close to 69 per cent. The movement grew out of nearly two years of student protests that began after the Novi Sad railway station canopy collapse on 1 November 2024 killed 16 people.
Could Orbán and Vučić return to power?
Both men say they plan to. Vučić has predicted his Serbian Progressive Party could return to power within two years. But both may first face prosecution for corruption and abuse of power. In Serbia, a presidential election must be held by 27 December 2026.
What happens next in Serbia?
Voting is repeated at 53 polling stations on 1 November 2026, after which the electoral commission can declare the final results. The new parliament must then meet and has 90 days to elect a government. A presidential election must be held by 27 December and called by 27 November.
Conclusion
A year ago, Orbán and Vučić shared burek in Subotica and talked about oil deals, confident that their grip on power would only grow. Within a year, both were out — beaten by young voters, data and tens of thousands of volunteers standing outside polling stations with cameras.
Their meeting in Belgrade on 31 October was a show of defiance, but it was also a sign of how much has changed. For the first time in years, the two men are on the outside, watching governments they do not control take over the institutions they built. Whether they return, as Vučić promises, will depend on what those new governments do next — and on whether the courts come calling first.
The lesson of the last six months is that power that looked unbreakable can break quickly. The lesson of the next six months will be whether the movements that broke it can build something that lasts.
This article is for general information and education only. It is not legal or financial advice.
Sources
- https://clashreport.com/world/articles/orb-n-and-vu-i-meet-in-belgrade-vu-i-says-we-will-return-dg135qj4us (Clash Report, 31 October 2026)
- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c893z699q401o (BBC News, 1 November 2026) — BBC News site could not be opened directly; the full text of the BBC article was read via the VidiaNews republication listed below
- https://vidianews.com/news/12942-how-the-downfall-of-serbia-s-vucic-mirrored-that-of-hungary-s-orban (VidiaNews, republishing BBC News, 1 November 2026)
- https://www.byteseu.com/2487363/ (Bytes Europe, 31 October 2026)
