By Karan Thapar

Bizarre as it may seem, the news of Viktor Orban’s shattering defeat in last Sunday’s elections in Hungary made me think of Zoltan Karpathy. Now, who is Karpathy, you might well ask? In My Fair Lady he’s described as “that dreadful Hungarian”. Honestly, isn’t that a term one could use for Viktor Orban?

In the film, Karpathy “made it the devilish business of his” to expose Eliza Doolittle, a flower girl pretending to be an aristocrat, on her debut at the Embassy Ball. And he got it terribly wrong. Peter Magyar, you could argue is a bit like Miss Doolittle. He has captured the imagination of the Hungarian people. He came seemingly from nowhere to take by storm the citadel of Hungarian politics.

Let me first tell you about the results before I return to Karpathy and My Fair Lady. With a turnout of nearly 80%, Peter Magyar’s Tisza Party won 53% of the vote and 138 seats out of 199. That’s more than a two-thirds majority. Viktor Orban’s Fidesz was reduced to just 55 seats and 38% of the vote. The relatively unknown outsider won all the laurels.

That is also the story of My Fair Lady. Eliza Doolittle, who’s cockney accent betrays her actual lower class origins, transforms into a sophisticated lady that you could easily mistake for a princess. Zoltan Karpathy does just that.

In the process, however, Karpathy makes a nuisance of himself. Most people would say that for the sixteen years he was in power that’s exactly what Viktor Orban did. Don’t these lines from Henry Higgins song ‘You Did It’ apply to Orban as well? “Every time we looked around, there he was, that hairy hound from Budapest. Never leaving us alone, never have I ever known a ruder pest … oozing charm from every pore, he oiled his way around the floor … and with a voice too eager, and a smile too broad, he announced to the hostess, that she was a fraud!”

In the movie, Karpathy comes to the faulty conclusion that Eliza Doolittle was born Hungarian and, he adds, “of royal blood, she is a princess!” Of course, she is not but she is victorious. That’s surely the point?

Peter Magyar, you could say, is the new ‘king of the castle’. He’s turfed out the dictator-tyrant Orban. But he is, in fact, an ordinary politician who no one ever thought would be important. Except he has a lot of charm and savoir faire. Like Eliza Doolittle, he’s punctured the confidence as well as the grip and hold of Orban’s former ruling elite.

It’s the victory of the outsider over the realm of the traditional governing class that both Peter Magyar and Eliza Doolittle represent. That’s the stuff fairy tales are made of. Stories we want to be true but rarely, if ever, are. In My Fair Lady’s fantasy it became real. Now in Hungary it’s happened in real life.

Let me return to the delightful Higgins song ‘You Did It’. According to its lyrics, Karpathy says of Eliza Doolittle “her blood … is bluer than the Danube is or ever was. Royalty is absolutely written on her face”. Bear those words in mind when you next look at a picture of Peter Magyar. Though only forty-five he looks as if he was to the manor born. Or do I mean manner? Not for a moment would you think he’s an outsider, an arriviste. He carries himself as if he was made to be prime minister. His destiny, like Eliza’s assumed royalty, his written on his face.

I don’t want to take this comparison too far. I am, after all, writing with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek and yet I can’t resist the thought that sometimes the lyrics of a song can capture and convey an allusion that could lift an historic development into everlasting romantic folklore. I wish Peter Magyar, the Eliza Doolittle of Hungary, the very best of good fortune as Zoltan Karpathy is banished to the political wilderness where he belongs.