Orbán era swept away by Péter Magyar's Hungary election landslide

Viktor Orbán's 16 years in power are over, and the system condemned as an "electoral autocracy" lies in tatters, defeated by a 45-year-old former party insider who convinced a majority of Hungarians to bring it to an end.

"We did it," Péter Magyar told a crowd of cheering supporters in a square beside the River Danube, overlooking Budapest's magnificent parliament on the other side.

"Together we overthrew the Hungarian regime."

Preliminary election results, based on more than 98% of votes counted, put his Tisza party on course for an extraordinary 138 seats, with Orbán's Fidesz on 55 and the far-right Our Homeland on six.

For two years, Magyar took his burgeoning movement to villages, town squares, and cities, rallying Hungarians who had had enough of the cronyism and corruption that had become endemic.

"Never before in the history of democratic Hungary have so many people voted - and no single party has ever received such a strong mandate," he said on Sunday night, after a record 79.5% of the electorate turned out to vote.

Orbán's rule was built up through four successive election victories and sweeping majorities, but it was over in a matter of minutes.

As pro-Magyar supporters waited expectantly in the square on the Buda side of the Danube, the Tisza leader posted an extraordinary message on Facebook: "Viktor Orbán just called me on the phone and congratulated us on our victory."

There was barely time to digest what had just happened, and only 30% of the vote had so far been counted.

But moments later Orbán himself appeared on a stage in a conference centre a mile downriver on the other side of the Danube, surrounded by his glum-looking Fidesz party colleagues.

"The result of the election is clear and painful," he told them, thanking the estimated 2.5 million Hungarians who stuck by him. "The days ahead of us are for us to heal our wounds."

Word began to spread among Magyar supporters, and at the nearby hotel that had become party HQ, Tisza activists hugged each other.

Magyar has promised to reverse Orbán-era changes to education and health, tackle corruption, restore the independence of the judiciary, and kill off the widely loathed patronage system known as NER, which helped enrich party loyalists and squander state resources.

Champagne flowed

To make those changes to the constitution, he needed a two-thirds majority of 133 seats, and although the final results are not yet in, the latest results suggest Tisza is on course for 138.

Magyar had been telling his supporters to prepare for a change of regime, and now they had it, the parties truly started, and the champagne flowed. Cars blared their horns across Budapest, women waving Hungarian flags through open sunroofs.

Many of those who backed Magyar are not natural supporters. For years, he backed Orbán, and now he has brought him down.

"He's someone you cannot be absolutely sure of," a lawyer called Ágnes told the BBC, "but we're at a point where we need to hope for something better, which he promises - and we truly hope his promises come true."

Parties erupted across Budapest as Hungarians celebrated Orbán's downfall

Another target in Magyar's sights is pro-Orbán state media. The M1 TV channel has until now slavishly toed the party line, along with what were once independent websites bought up over time by Fidesz allies.

Apparently uncertain what to do next, M1 rebroadcast a speech that Magyar had given just after the vote had finished. He had been hopeful of victory at the time, but by now the speech was out of date - he had already won. Read more here: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd9vg782kx7o