Captured vs. Fragmented. What Hungary and Bulgaria Reveal About Modern Elections

‘Public media shouldn’t lie. We’re sorry for doing it for years. Public media is going through a change so it can be independent and trustworthy in the future. Broadcasting is paused for a while. Stay with us!!’

This is the message that has been broadcast by the Hungarian state TV channel M1 TV when it halted its news programme transmission on 7 July 2026.

Hungary and Bulgaria appear to tell very different electoral stories. One is a story of capture, with a political system built around media dominance, state-party fusion and centralised narrative control. The other is a story of fragmentation, with repeated elections, weak coordination, low media trust and opaque influence networks.

Yet both cases point to a common deeper problem. Elections in Central and Eastern Europe are increasingly shaped not only by formal rules, party programmes or election-day procedures, but as much by the fragmented information spaces in which citizens form their sense of reality. Voters make their choices in information spaces shaped by emotion, distrust, online communities, algorithms and hybrid threats. That makes elections more open to surprise, but also more vulnerable to manipulation.

#The invisible campaign

When the information space is distorted, the damage goes beyond one party or one campaign. It weakens trust in institutions, discourages participation and makes democratic politics feel remote, manipulated or meaningless. In such an environment, disinformation does not need to persuade everyone. It only needs to deepen doubt, anger or resignation.

For more than a decade, Viktor Orbán’s political system has demonstrated how elections can remain formally competitive while the wider conditions of competition become deeply unequal. Government communication, public resources, public service media, pro-government private media, state advertising and affiliated civic networks have helped create a permanent campaign environment for Fidesz. In such a system, the distinction between state information and party messaging became indistinguishable, and voters had been repeatedly exposed to narratives that favour the incumbent while delegitimising opponents.

The 2026 parliamentary elections showed the strength, but also the limits, of this captured model. Fear-based narratives about war, Ukraine, Brussels and foreign influence remained central to the governing party’s campaign. The opposition was portrayed not only as a political alternative, but as a threat to national sovereignty and security.

Yet the victory of Péter Magyar and the Tisza party showed that captured systems can still be challenged when citizens find alternative channels of mobilisation. When voters no longer trust official channels, they may begin to build their own.

#Tisza Islands and the mobilisation paradox

The Tisza Islands – loosely affiliated local party chapters – showed that even a captured information system can be bypassed. Over time, they grew into a grassroots infrastructure that reached well beyond Budapest, including rural areas where Orbán’s support had long been strongest and where independent civic life had often weakened. These networks helped turn Tisza from a leader-driven opposition project into a decentralised movement built on local trust, door-to-door contact and a sense of political agency among ordinary supporters.

But this is also where the paradox begins. The same tools that mobilise citizens for democratic renewal, including emotional storytelling, online identity, decentralised communities and leader-centred communication, can also be used by populists to deepen polarisation and weaken accountability.

This makes the Tisza experience both hopeful and cautionary. It suggests that democratic energy can survive even inside a captured information environment. But it also raises questions about what happens after mobilisation succeeds. Can decentralised civic-political communities be transformed into accountable democratic governance? Can leader-centred mobilisation avoid reproducing the same majoritarian habits it opposed? And can digital enthusiasm be sustained without turning politics into another form of emotional loyalty?

‘Tisza’s victory was also thanks to Magyar’s cautious but populist campaign messaging’, suggests Luca Flora Soltész, Visegrad Insight contributing editor from Hungary. ‘He avoided controversial topics such as Ukraine support or LGBTQ+ rights’.

In Soltész’s view, Hungarians from across the political spectrum who voted for Tisza will soon need to face reality. ‘Magyar might have been the way out, but citizens need to rebuild and uphold democracy themselves’.

The ‘islands’ as locally-connected groups have the potential to function as a real connective tissue between Hungarian society and politics. According to Edit Zgut-Przybylska, a senior Fellow at Visegrad Insight, ‘during the campaign, they created spaces for democratic participation – a markedly different dialogue that we had not seen for 16 years’ . In her view, Tisza islands empowered collective problem-solving in communities where engagement had long been weakened by apathy, dependency, and lack of trust and efficacy.

‘They should not be seen as merely campaign infrastructure but as a democratic infrastructure around the Tisza government, also to hold it accountable if needed’.

However, there is no guarantee at this stage that the Tisza Islands will act as the important counterbalance to Magyar’s government, which received a strong mandate (mainly due to the faulty electoral system created by Orban). Although pro-Orbán media sites have been closing down one by one in the past months, donations for member-financed independent media and NGOs also decreased. The need for independent media and civil society has been seen as anti-Orbán in the past 16 years.

‘Hungarians need to realise that both are essential so that no authoritarian leader could be in position in the future‘, Soltész believes.

#Bulgaria and the politics of fragmentation

Bulgaria tells a different story. Before the 19 April 2026 general elections, the country did not face one dominant actor controlling the entire political and media space. Its vulnerability came from instability, weak coordination, low trust and opaque networks.

Bulgaria’s vulnerability was therefore not the mirror image of Hungary’s. It was not primarily a story of one centre controlling the information space. It was a story of gaps. Institutions did not always coordinate quickly enough, civil society was not always treated as a trusted partner, detection did not always lead to response, and public warnings did not always translate into public trust.

At the same time, there was very low trust among state institutions and agencies, and between the state and civil society. This reflected a longer history in which agencies were captured or dominated by various elements that might be considered antithetical to democracy. It was also reinforced by a long-standing tendency to underestimate the role that civil society organisations can play in protecting democratic elections.

This low-trust environment made the response especially difficult. In fragmented systems, even accurate information may fail to persuade if citizens do not trust the messenger. Government communication can be dismissed as partisan; civil society warnings can be smeared as foreign-driven; and independent media may struggle to reach audiences already enclosed in alternative information communities.

Somewhat late in the process, those actors who sought to mitigate foreign influence and disinformation campaigns decided to focus on detection. They began creating a single agency to oversee this area, bringing together the various ministries and agencies involved. As a temporary measure, however, this responsibility was placed with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which was tasked with monitoring and reporting using an open-source intelligence framework.

Less attention was initially placed on collaboration, coordination and relationships with the international community and civil society. Yet, these were precisely the areas where Bulgaria’s vulnerability was most visible.

#Bulgaria’s search for resilience

Bulgaria understood that efforts to counter foreign influence and disinformation campaigns needed to start with a baseline vulnerability assessment, although time was limited. Following consultations with national and international experts and organisations, the government began to consider a more robust response to foreign influence and disinformation campaigns. Four areas became especially important.

Identification. Bulgaria recognised that any comprehensive response had to begin with clear criteria and contingency plans. Democratic systems need to distinguish between legitimate political speech, misinformation, disinformation, coordinated manipulation and FIMI. The government took steps towards a response plan involving state institutions, media platforms, civil society, academia and other partners. The central challenge was to turn monitoring and analysis into action, guided by clear escalation pathways and pre-assigned responsibilities.

Coordination and collaboration. Disinformation response requires institutions to share information quickly and trust one another enough to act together. In Bulgaria, this proved difficult. The government therefore intended to eventually establish a more permanent, inclusive body to address such threats.

Strategic communication. This is where detection and coordination become visible to the public. For Bulgaria, several priorities emerged. Existing analytical and monitoring capacities provided a useful foundation. But a model in which detection led to recommendations that were then elevated for decision-making risked creating delays at critical moments. Authorities also needed to use their own institutional channels more actively, including social media, not only to respond to falsehoods but to shape the information environment in advance.

Large online platforms. In Bulgaria, as elsewhere, platforms played a major role in the spread of disinformation. The government even considered several EU mechanisms, including the Digital Services Act, the EU Rapid Alert System and the Code of Practice on Disinformation. These tools are useful, but they are mainly designed for systemic risk mitigation and information exchange. They do not resolve every harmful piece of content in real time. Besides, democratic resilience cannot be outsourced to technology companies.

#Different outcomes, shared fault lines

In Hungary, democratic backsliding was interrupted through a striking mobilisation against a deeply entrenched system. In Bulgaria, instability continued to expose the electoral environment to manipulation, foreign influence and distrust. The outcomes were different, but the underlying risks were closer than they first appear.

The first common risk is trust. In both countries, many citizens encounter politics through media and online spaces where institutions, journalists and political actors are already treated with suspicion. Once trust has been weakened, disinformation does not need to persuade everyone. It only needs to deepen doubt, anger or resignation.

Another is pressure on independent scrutiny. In Hungary, civil society and independent media have operated for years inside a system that sought to marginalise them. In Bulgaria, civil society has often struggled to be accepted as a genuine partner in protecting elections. The result is different in form, but similar in effect. When watchdogs are weakened or excluded, manipulation becomes harder to expose and easier to deny.

A third is the way foreign influence feeds on domestic weakness. Outside actors rarely create divisions from nothing. They exploit grievances, political incentives and institutional gaps that already exist. Foreign influence becomes most powerful when domestic actors are willing to amplify it for their own advantage.

There is also emotional mobilisation. Narratives about war, sovereignty, betrayal, corruption or foreign control can move voters because they speak to fear and identity more than evidence. They can mobilise people against captured power, as Hungary showed. They can also deepen resentment and instability, as Bulgaria’s fragmented environment demonstrates.

Finally, both cases show the growing power of online communities. Telegram groups, Facebook pages, influencers and other digital spaces are becoming part of political infrastructure. They can help citizens organise outside captured or distrusted institutions. But they can also accelerate polarisation, spread manipulation and reward loyalty over accountability.

This is the shared warning. Capture and fragmentation are different paths to electoral vulnerability. One concentrates power, the other disperses responsibility. But both can weaken the common democratic ground on which free and informed choice depends.

#What can realistically work and what can backfire

The lesson from Hungary and Bulgaria is that democracies need fewer abstract recommendations and more practical responses that fit the vulnerabilities they face.

In captured systems, the key challenge is how to create alternative channels of credible information and protect independent scrutiny. In fragmented systems, the key challenge is how to build coordination, trust and rapid response before manipulation escalates.

In Hungary, what mattered was not only party competition. It was the ability of citizens and political challengers to bypass a captured media ecosystem. Direct voter contact, independent media, civil society scrutiny, online mobilisation and local communities helped create alternative spaces of trust.

Yet this also carries risks. If democratic mobilisation becomes too dependent on one leader, one movement or one emotional narrative, it may weaken pluralism after victory. The response to capture must therefore combine mobilisation with accountability, institutional reform and protection of independent media.

In Bulgaria, the most realistic responses were different. They began with threat identification, coordination and collaboration, strategic communication and platform engagement. Although some of these responses were recognised late, and perhaps too late to make a meaningful impact, the effort to address them was important.

The aim in a fragmented system should not be to centralise control over information. It should be to make sure that credible actors can respond quickly, consistently and proportionately when manipulation occurs. This requires a baseline vulnerability assessment, clear escalation procedures, trusted cooperation between institutions and civil society, and pre-agreed strategic communication.

There is no single answer to foreign interference and disinformation. Some tools may work in one context and backfire in another. Responses need to be grounded in reality, not designed only on paper. They must be credible, rights-based and prepared well before a crisis emerges. Strategic communication can work when it is timely, factual and delivered by trusted messengers. It can backfire when it appears partisan or when it amplifies fringe narratives.

The lesson is not that democracies need more control over speech. They need more resilience in the spaces where citizens encounter politics. That means stronger institutions, protected civic actors, independent media, transparent platforms, better-prepared election authorities and citizens who are less vulnerable to manipulation.

#Elections can still surprise

Hungary and Bulgaria show that elections can still surprise. They show that elections can still produce democratic openings, but also that such openings do not necessarily mean the democratic system is healthy.

The different outcomes should not obscure the shared vulnerabilities. Democrats can win elections in difficult environments. So can populists and anti-democrats. The decisive question is ultimately whether elections are held in conditions that allow citizens to make free, informed and meaningful choices. These are the standards that should guide any assessment of electoral integrity.

A captured system can be challenged. A fragmented system can still search for resilience. But the same conditions that allow democratic mobilisation in one country can empower populists or foreign proxies in another. Electoral integrity must therefore be defended not only at the ballot box, but in the spaces where citizens form trust, interpret reality and decide whether democracy still works.

The article was published by Visegrad Insight on 9 July 2026.

About authors

Dr Beata Martin-Rozumiłowicz is an electoral expert with nearly three decades of experience globally. She has been a deputy chief observer on various EU EOMs, IFES’ Europe/Eurasia Director, and headed OSCE/ODIHR’s Election Department.

Rasťo Kužel is a media and election expert with over 27 years of international experience. He leads MEMO 98, a media-monitoring organisation providing analysis and technical assistance to the Council of Europe and other international bodies. His work focuses on disinformation, AI, and electoral integrity, including co-authoring key guides for IFES, UNESCO, and the Council of Europe.

Featured illustration uses content elements by Balint Szentgallay/Getty Images, REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov, Wikipedia. and it was published by Visegrad Insight