Elections in Hungary. Big party on the banks of the Danube: Tisza wins and Gen Z makes history

The Tisza wave has kept its promises. In the ballot box, it became the sea that submerged 16 years of the illiberal regime of the sovereignist Viktor Orban, who had to bow his head and concede a 'clear and painful' victory to his opponent Peter Magyar. A crushing victory.

With 14.7 per cent of the polling stations counted - almost all in the countryside - when the first overtaking of Tisza over Fidesz took place, the crowd that had flocked to the Danube to support Peter Magyar, the miracle man, melted into a roar. Voting closed at 7pm, but until 8.30pm the faces of the supporters of the wave of change were tense. The stakes were high, the risks of manipulation around the corner. Peter Magyar himself, expected on the stage set up on the banks of the Blue River, on the opposite side of the Hungarian Parliament, initially preferred to link up from a distance and urge everyone to calm down.

But at 9 p.m., the projections on half of the polling stations already gave Tisza 135 seats out of 199. And at that point, music replaced the voice of the commentators, and chanting and dancing no longer stopped. Along the river thousands of young people, but also mothers with young and old children. And many more Hungarians arriving on foot, along the big bridges, to come and celebrate. Erik is 23 years old, he says he still doesn't believe it. He lived in Amsterdam for a year, he saw the difference, 'here in Budapest it's like we are stuck in the last century'. The Gen Z vote made a difference, the turnout was close to 80 per cent, this time in Budapest dreams did not die at dawn.

Along the major thoroughfares, such as Szent Istvan Korut, it's all honking like when you win the World Cup. The pavements are all for young people, who look at each other, smile at strangers, raise their fists to the sky. They counted each other on social media, they made a revolution without even a fight, their strength was that tide of votes they deposited in the ballot box. Now Tisza has the responsibility not to betray them. "We have made the great commitment to change Hungary with them," says Eszter Lakos, Tisza's MEP, who arrived from Brussels to celebrate with the square the great victory of the movement of which she has been a part since the beginning. "We know that we have a great responsibility towards them, because they have entrusted us with their hopes for the future. We will try to live up to their expectations'.

Later, calculations will confirm whether Peter Magyar will actually succeed, as it seems, in achieving the goal of the two-thirds majority of seats, i.e. 133, necessary to be able to change the constitution and bring it back to the rule of law from which Orban has wrested it. The new parliament will have to restore freedom, remove corrupt officials, depose complacent judges. Return purchasing power to the citizens. Bring Hungary back into the EU and not among its detractors. Peter Magyar will have to find within his movement the capable and prepared figures to lead the country out of the dark years of Orban. From tomorrow, though. Today is the day of the party on the Danube. Where the waving tricolours have a new light.