The lock on the door by Mira Radulova

Hungary’s decision to amend its constitution and impose a cumulative eight-year limit on any prime minister’s time in office is more than a procedural adjustment. It is a statement about the lessons learned from an era dominated by Viktor Orbán.

The measure is plainly aimed at preventing Orbán, recently removed from office by voters, from engineering a political comeback. Critics will inevitably argue that such a constitutional change is undemocratic because it denies citizens the right to re-elect a leader they may one day wish to return. Yet that objection misunderstands the challenge posed by modern authoritarianism. The greatest threat to liberal democracy today rarely arrives through tanks in the streets or generals seizing broadcasting stations. More often, it comes through elections themselves.

Across the world, would-be strongmen have discovered that democratic systems can be manipulated from within. Once elected, they gradually weaken independent institutions, undermine the judiciary, intimidate the media, and reshape electoral rules in ways that make future defeats increasingly difficult. The ballot box remains, but the playing field becomes steadily less fair. Voters continue to cast ballots, yet meaningful political competition slowly erodes.

Orbán became one of the most prominent examples of this phenomenon. His supporters praised him as a defender of national sovereignty and traditional values. His opponents viewed him as a leader who concentrated power, weakened institutional checks and transformed Hungary into a model of illiberal governance. Whatever one’s ideological sympathies, it is difficult to deny that his long tenure demonstrated how durable political dominance can alter the character of a democratic system.

That reality explains why term limits have become a common constitutional safeguard. They are not expressions of distrust toward voters. Rather, they are expressions of distrust toward power itself. Democracies function best when no individual becomes indispensable. Regular leadership renewal prevents the state from becoming synonymous with a single personality and reduces the temptation to bend institutions toward personal political survival.

Of course, term limits are not a cure-all. A weak democracy can still be captured by successors, political allies or entrenched party machines. Constitutional rules alone cannot substitute for an independent judiciary, a free press and a vibrant civil society. Nevertheless, they can provide an important line of defence.

The Hungarian amendment may provoke controversy, but it reflects a broader democratic instinct: when a political system has experienced prolonged domination by one figure, citizens often seek mechanisms to ensure that such concentration of power cannot easily recur. That is not necessarily a rejection of democracy. It can be an attempt to preserve it.

In the end, democracies are judged not only by how they choose leaders but also by how effectively they prevent leaders from becoming permanent fixtures. Hungary has decided that one lesson of the Orbán era is that the door should remain open to political change but locked against endless return.