While pre-election polls did show Tisza to have a comfortable double-digit lead in the polls, the impact of its victory feels no less seismic for that. For in a stunning inversion of the logic and patterns of Hungarian electoral outcomes since Viktor Orbán returned to office in 2010 (he had been Prime Minister before between 1998 and 2002 when his party had governed democratically as a mainstream centre-right party but after 2002 he tacked sharply to the ethno-nationalist far right); Tisza has won a supermajority or two thirds of the 199 seats in the Hungarian Parliament – the same sort of margins that Fidesz routinely achieved in the “illiberal democracy” which Orbán went to such inordinate lengths to institutionalise. In an era where liberal democracy has widely perceived to be in retreat from the Triple P Virus of Populism, Polarisation and Post-Truth (its most significant capture being the United States of Trump 2.0), the removal of its most consequential figure in Europe has been welcomed euphorically by democrats and progressives across the continent (regardless of the ideological orientation of the victorious party).
Hungary has a population of less than 10 million and an economy that produces a modest 1.1% of the European Union’s GDP. But the election was a totemic crucible for two competing visions of not just Hungarian identity but that of Europe and the wider West. One was the vision of liberal democratic Europe exemplified by the EU with its core values of open societies, freedom of expression and acceptance of the rules and conventions of representative democracy. The other was the traditional conservative Christian Europe under the threat of, in the words of the US National Security Strategy, of “civilisational erasure” by mass immigration. For proponents of the latter, Viktor Orbán’s self-styled “Illiberal democracy” is its poster child with its defence of a Europe under alleged siege from without by interfering EU officials, hordes of mainly Muslim immigrants and the forces of Soros-backed globalism and within gender ideology and “far left,” woke ideology. Latterly another demon has been added to this list in the form of President Zelenskyy of Ukraine whose defensive war against Russian aggression Orban warned of Hungary being dragooned into. Hardly surprising that Orbán is Europe’s bridgehead for both Trump and Putin in that his conservative Christian nationalist ideology reflects the worldview of both aggrandising superpowers. Hardly surprising but so egregious in terms of the principle of the sovereignty of nations, that Trump has weighed in with encouragement on Truth Social for Hungarians to “Get out and vote for Orbán'' and that a day before the poll opened, he pledged to use “the full economic might” of the US to shore up the European economy.
Hungary has a population of less than 10 million and an economy that produces a modest 1.1% of the European Union’s GDP. But the election was a totemic crucible for two competing visions of not just Hungarian identity but that of Europe and the wider West. One was the vision of liberal democratic Europe exemplified by the EU with its core values of open societies, freedom of expression and acceptance of the rules and conventions of representative democracy. The other was the traditional conservative Christian Europe under the threat of, in the words of the US National Security Strategy, of “civilisational erasure” by mass immigration. For proponents of the latter, Viktor Orbán’s self-styled “Illiberal democracy” is its poster child with its defence of a Europe under alleged siege from without by interfering EU officials, hordes of mainly Muslim immigrants and the forces of Soros-backed globalism and within gender ideology and “far left,” woke ideology. Latterly another demon has been added to this list in the form of President Zelenskyy of Ukraine whose defensive war against Russian aggression Orban warned of Hungary being dragooned into. Hardly surprising that Orbán is Europe’s bridgehead for both Trump and Putin in that his conservative Christian nationalist ideology reflects the worldview of both aggrandising superpowers. Hardly surprising but so egregious in terms of the principle of the sovereignty of nations, that Trump has weighed in with encouragement on Truth Social for Hungarians to “Get out and vote for Orbán'' and that a day before the poll opened, he pledged to use “the full economic might” of the US to shore up the European economy.
Also, with no hint of irony (a quality that is rapidly disappearing in our neo-Orwellian world), Vice President JD Vance on his trip to Budapest to “help” Orbán’s campaign accused Europe of meddling in the election and lambasted “Brussels bureaucrats” for destroying Hungary’s economy.[1] Other far right figures lined up to show solidarity with their ideological kin: Marine Le Pen, Georgia Meloni, Italian PM, Benjamin Netananyu, President Javier Milei of Argentina and Orbán’s neighbouring Eurosceptic and Putin ally, Robert Fico in Slovakia. More ominously, has been the spectre of Russian disinformation and possible false flag operations to assist their most pliant European leader. After Orbán accused Ukraine of blowing up a pipeline to deprive Hungary of Russian energy and manipulate the election, a week before the election, rucksacks full of explosives were found near another pipeline in Serbia that transports Russian gas to Hungary. While the 4kg of explosives were not sufficient to cause major damage to the pipe, it had in the opinion of a former Ukrainian major general and munitions specialist “provocation” value for Orbán. Worse still, wiretapped phone calls published last week revealed that Hungary’s foreign minister promised to share confidential EU documents regarding Ukrainian accession with his Russian opposite number. Western intelligence sources told the Washington Post that Russia had floated the idea of staging an assassination attempt against Orbán to tilt the vote in his favour.[2]
The clarion calls of both leaders were indications that the stakes in this election could not have been higher. Magyar and his centre-right Tisza party, which according to most polls had a double-digit lead over Orban’s Fidesz party in the run up to the vote, were accused by Orban of “colluding” with foreign intelligence and threatening the ruling party’s supporters with violence. In response Magyar – a former Fidesz loyalist who left it two years ago, accusing it of corruption and propaganda, said in a social media post:
The clarion calls of both leaders were indications that the stakes in this election could not have been higher. Magyar and his centre-right Tisza party, which according to most polls had a double-digit lead over Orban’s Fidesz party in the run up to the vote, were accused by Orban of “colluding” with foreign intelligence and threatening the ruling party’s supporters with violence. In response Magyar – a former Fidesz loyalist who left it two years ago, accusing it of corruption and propaganda, said in a social media post:
The ongoing election fraud carried out for months by Fidesz, along with criminal acts, intelligence operations, disinformation and fake news cannot change the fact that Tisza is going to win this election.[3]
So how did it get to this state? Why was Hungary standing at this particular threshold? One answer is provided by the democratic theories Steven Levitsky and Damiel Ziblatt who hold up Hungary as a textbook example of how democracies will die in the 21st century; not through coups, the violence of civil wars or insurgency, foreign invasion or the rise of a militia backed Hitler or Mussolini but through democratic backsliding over time. Surveying twenty-first century autocracies, Levitsky and Ziblatt find that most of them are built via lawfare or constitutional hardball. They write that democratic backsliding occurs gradually and stealthily, through a series of seemingly non-controversial enactments: new laws that are ostensibly designed to clean up elections, defeat corruption, or create a more efficient judiciary (the proposed restriction of jury trials in England and Wales may raise a red flag for this reason); court rulings that reinterpret existing laws; long-dormant laws that are conveniently rediscovered. Because such measures have the shroud of legality and do not attract serious dissent, it appears that little has changed. Parliament remains open and appears to function normally and so opposition to the government’s measures is easily shrugged off as alarmist. However, the terms of deliberation do shift over time almost without notice. Eventually, the cumulative effect of these apparently harmless and inconspicuous measures is to make the task of opposition to the government more difficult and thereby entrench the incumbents in power.[4]
Orbán’s assault on democracy was facilitated by a scandal involving his rivals in the Hungarian Socialist Party when a Socialist Prime Minister was caught on tape admitting that he had lied about the state of the economy. The party’s subsequent collapse allowed Fidesz to score a landslide victory in the 2010 election; a landslide enabled by Hungary’s “first past the post” electoral system, which turned 53 percent of the vote into a two-thirds parliamentary majority.
Orbán then went about deploying his parliamentary supermajority to disadvantage his opponents (another cautionary tale for other countries like Britain with winner-take-all voting systems). He rewrote the Constitution to allow the ruling party to unilaterally appoint justices of the Constitutional Court, replacing the previous judicial selection mechanism whereby the justices were selected by a parliamentary committee comprising representatives from all the political parties. Another constitutional amendment expanded the Constitutional Court from eleven to fifteen, creating four vacancies for Fidesz with allies. Then a law requiring Supreme Court presidents to have at least five years judicial experience in Hungary forced the existing President, Andras Baka, to stand down as he did not have that requisite period of service in Hungary but had served seventeen years on the European Court of Human Rights which made him an obvious and high-profile target for lawfare. But Fidesz went even further as Parliament proceeded to pass a law lowering the retirement age for judges from seventy to sixty-two and so enforcing the retirement of 274 judges. Although the law was later repealed under pressure from the European Union, many of the retirees did not return to their posts. As a former Constitutional Court justice put it, Orbán had pulled off “a constitutional coup … [under] the cover of constitutionally, with constitutional means.”[5] (An example maybe of why a written constitution may not be the exact panacea for countries like the UK without one).
Orbán also waged lawfare on the media by making public television a propaganda arm of government and by its capture of private media. As part of a “restructuring” process, Fidesz officials dismissed more than a thousand public media employees, including dozens of respected professional journalists and editors. These positions were filled by political loyalists, and public media coverage grew blatantly partisan. Regarding the private media, the Fidesz government worked behind the scenes to assist Orbán’s business cronies in the buying of major media outlets or to gain controlling shares in parent companies that owned independent media outlets. Pressure would then be applied to these independent media to self-censor or, in a few cases, or simply shut down.
Orbán also waged lawfare on the media by making public television a propaganda arm of government and by its capture of private media. As part of a “restructuring” process, Fidesz officials dismissed more than a thousand public media employees, including dozens of respected professional journalists and editors. These positions were filled by political loyalists, and public media coverage grew blatantly partisan. Regarding the private media, the Fidesz government worked behind the scenes to assist Orbán’s business cronies in the buying of major media outlets or to gain controlling shares in parent companies that owned independent media outlets. Pressure would then be applied to these independent media to self-censor or, in a few cases, or simply shut down.
In 2016, Hungary’s largest opposition newspaper, Nepszabadsag, was suddenly closed down by its own corporate owners, not the government. The few remaining independent outlets were hedged in by a variety of restrictive measures. A 2010 law forbade reporting that was “imbalanced”, “insulting” or contrary to “public morality”, with those fouling foul of the new law facing up fines of up to $900,000. A Media Council, packed with Fidesz loyalists, was set up to enforce the law and dozens of media organisations has hundreds of thousands of dollars of fines imposed on them. The Media Council also denied licenses to independent media on the most tedious of technical grounds such as failing to fill out forms correctly. These hardball measures had the desired effect with one study finding that 90 percent of Hungarian media was in the hands of the Orbán government or its private sector allies by 2017. Some 80 percent of Hungarian television viewers and radio listeners received only information provided by the government or its supporters.[6]
Lastly, the Orbán government used constitutional hardball in the most crucial and consequential arena of all – the electoral field of competition. First, it packed the Electoral Commission, which prior to 2010 was appointed via multiparty consensus. Five of the ten seats were filled by delegates of each of the largest parties in parliament, while the other five were filled by mutual agreement between the government and the opposition to guarantee that no single party would control the electoral process. Fidesz discontinued this practice and replaced all five nondelegate seats with party loyalists. Then, in a manner reminiscent of the ‘packing and cracking’ and gerrymandering practices associated with Jim Crow US Deep South and Northern Ireland between 1921 and 1972, the packed Electoral Commission proceeded to rig parliamentary electoral districts to overrepresent Fidesz’s rural strongholds and underrepresent the opposition’s urban redoubts. On top of this, the government banned the use of campaign advertisements in commercial media which severely impacted on the opposition’s ability to reach voters because of the pro-Fidesz bias of the public and private media.[7]
In terms of remaking Hungary in his own image, then Orbán’s lawfare paid dividends. In the 2014 election, Fidesz lost 600,000 votes relative to 2010; its share of the popular vote fell from 53 percent to 45 percent but retained its two thirds control of parliament. It repeated the feat in 2018 and 2022 winning two-thirds of parliament with less than half of the popular vote. By breaking the oracle in the way they have this time round, Peter Magyar and his Tisza party have certainly overcome the emerging conventional wisdom that Orbán “cannot be defeated under ‘normal’ circumstances.”[8]
Viktor Orbán’s long electoral dictatorship represents the mainstreaming of ideas that had remained hidden on the margins of far-right thought including the Great Replacement Theory, pronatalism and the rolling back of LGTB+ and gender-based rights. Orbán’s first victory in 2010, along with Marine Le Pen’s takeover and expansion of her father’s party the following year presaged the ascension of great replacement parties across Europe. During a radio interview in March 2018, Orban proclaimed:
Orbán became an increasingly influential figure in pan-Conservative circles through his embrace of Great Replacement and his involvement with the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC). At CPAC Hungary in 2022, he welcomed to Budapest such Alt-Right luminaries as Austria ‘s Freedom Party chair Herbert Kickl, Spain’s Vox president Santiago Abascal and American Conservative Union (ACU) chair Matt Sclapp. The increasingly influential talk show host Tucker Carlson and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage gave virtual addresses. A few days before CPAC Hungary, at his official inauguration of a new session of the Hungarian Parliament, he condemned the “suicidality” of Western values in Western countries:
Lastly, the Orbán government used constitutional hardball in the most crucial and consequential arena of all – the electoral field of competition. First, it packed the Electoral Commission, which prior to 2010 was appointed via multiparty consensus. Five of the ten seats were filled by delegates of each of the largest parties in parliament, while the other five were filled by mutual agreement between the government and the opposition to guarantee that no single party would control the electoral process. Fidesz discontinued this practice and replaced all five nondelegate seats with party loyalists. Then, in a manner reminiscent of the ‘packing and cracking’ and gerrymandering practices associated with Jim Crow US Deep South and Northern Ireland between 1921 and 1972, the packed Electoral Commission proceeded to rig parliamentary electoral districts to overrepresent Fidesz’s rural strongholds and underrepresent the opposition’s urban redoubts. On top of this, the government banned the use of campaign advertisements in commercial media which severely impacted on the opposition’s ability to reach voters because of the pro-Fidesz bias of the public and private media.[7]
In terms of remaking Hungary in his own image, then Orbán’s lawfare paid dividends. In the 2014 election, Fidesz lost 600,000 votes relative to 2010; its share of the popular vote fell from 53 percent to 45 percent but retained its two thirds control of parliament. It repeated the feat in 2018 and 2022 winning two-thirds of parliament with less than half of the popular vote. By breaking the oracle in the way they have this time round, Peter Magyar and his Tisza party have certainly overcome the emerging conventional wisdom that Orbán “cannot be defeated under ‘normal’ circumstances.”[8]
Viktor Orbán’s long electoral dictatorship represents the mainstreaming of ideas that had remained hidden on the margins of far-right thought including the Great Replacement Theory, pronatalism and the rolling back of LGTB+ and gender-based rights. Orbán’s first victory in 2010, along with Marine Le Pen’s takeover and expansion of her father’s party the following year presaged the ascension of great replacement parties across Europe. During a radio interview in March 2018, Orban proclaimed:
Hungarians are an endangered species… I think there are many people who would like to see the end of Christian Europe, and they believe that if they replace its cultural topsoil … this will make the continent a better place. We utterly reject this.[9]
Orbán became an increasingly influential figure in pan-Conservative circles through his embrace of Great Replacement and his involvement with the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC). At CPAC Hungary in 2022, he welcomed to Budapest such Alt-Right luminaries as Austria ‘s Freedom Party chair Herbert Kickl, Spain’s Vox president Santiago Abascal and American Conservative Union (ACU) chair Matt Sclapp. The increasingly influential talk show host Tucker Carlson and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage gave virtual addresses. A few days before CPAC Hungary, at his official inauguration of a new session of the Hungarian Parliament, he condemned the “suicidality” of Western values in Western countries:
One such suicide attempt is the great population replacement programme, which seeks to replace the missing European Christian children with migrants, with adults arriving from other civilisations. [10]
- articulating a central credo of and mission statement of the contemporary populist nationalist far right.
Another cornerstone of Orbán’s rule was an obsession with the supposed evils of gender ideology. In 2020 his government banned same-sex couples from adopting children and banned transgendered Hungarians from legally changing their gender identity. No longer able to mobilise masses with fear of migration after closing the borders to refugees during Europe’ migrant crisis of 2015-16, Orbán, observed political scientist Andras Bozoki. Orbán resorted, in the manner of so many authoritarian leaders to an identity or out-group issue like radical homophobia. In 2021, Orbán’s government banned sharing with minors any education and media content pertaining to homosexuality or gender identity. Hungary’s ban became a model for Florida’s Don’t Say Gay law in 2022 which prohibited “classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in certain grade levels.” [11]
And like Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis, Orbán framed day teachers – or teachers that assign literature on the gay experience – as paedophiles “grooming children.” In a particularly nauseating episode of hypocrisy, after Orbán’s government had established a searchable database of convicted paedophiles in Hungary, Hungarian President Katalin Novak, a handpicked appointee by Orbán, in April 2023 pardoned the former deputy director of a state-run children’s home who had been convicted of covering up sexual abuse of boys in his care. The pardon was signed off by Minister of Justice Judit Varga. In the wake of the public furore which followed the discovery of this scandal the following year, Orbán orchestrated distance and approved the resignations of Novak and Varga – the only two women in top posts in his government – who were inevitably hung out to dry. Also, Orbán’s Hungary ceased funding and accrediting gender studies degrees in 2018, effectively prohibiting Hungarian universities from teaching the discipline.[12]
Salient though the issues of race, pernicious conspiracy theories like Great Replacement and gender justice are to all democrats; it were the inter-related issues of decline of living standards and revulsion at the corruption and gilded lives of the ruling party’s elites which has driven Orban from and powered his opponent into power. When Hungary’s economy was growing, little attention was paid by vox populi to the withering away of checks and balances, the clampdown on LGTB events such as the Budapest Pride March, the closure of “Soros” funded NGOs and the attempts to restrict the curricula of Central University of Europe, Budapest founded by George Soros which led to its relocation to Vienna and the prohibition of the teaching of gender ideology. But as inflation soared after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and economic stagnation set in, rumblings began over the growing disconnect between Hungarians and its ruling class. It was against this backdrop that Peter Magyar began speaking out against his former associates in Fidesz’s inner circles. As he accused Orban’s party of styling itself as champions of Hungarians, while siphoning off state funds, corruption rapidly rose to the top of Hungarians’ list of concerns and Magyar’s hastily formed party ascended to the top of the polls.[13]
Symbolic of “the limitless corruption of the whole system,” in the words of the Hungarian independent MP Akos Hadhazy, was the drone footage of four zebras darting across the property - complete with manicured gardens, swimming pool, and underground garages - of the father of Orban to where Mr Hadhazy organised a series of “safari tours” last autumn in protest. Images of zebras were soon plastered over billboards; people posted videos of their treks to spot the animals, and plush toys were sold at protests as references to the zebras became part of the common currency of conversation.[14]
In the words of President Macron of France, Viktor Orbán’s defeat “is a victory for EU values.” It offers hope to democrats everywhere that the death of democracy 21st century style is not an inevitability. That Orbán has conceded defeat thus ensuring a proper transition or changing of the guard towards a new government is worthy of comment simply because of the violation of this basic democratic procedure by Donald Trump in the wake of the 2020 Presidential Election and by dictators like the former President Maduro of Venezuela. While it is obviously very early days yet, initial soundings from the Peter Magyar in that he has pledged to change the Constitution to restrict the period of office for the Prime Minister to a maximum of two terms, to reset relations with the EU, restore an independent media and judiciary and to reform public procurement.
So to Viktor, the spoils of defeat.
And like Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis, Orbán framed day teachers – or teachers that assign literature on the gay experience – as paedophiles “grooming children.” In a particularly nauseating episode of hypocrisy, after Orbán’s government had established a searchable database of convicted paedophiles in Hungary, Hungarian President Katalin Novak, a handpicked appointee by Orbán, in April 2023 pardoned the former deputy director of a state-run children’s home who had been convicted of covering up sexual abuse of boys in his care. The pardon was signed off by Minister of Justice Judit Varga. In the wake of the public furore which followed the discovery of this scandal the following year, Orbán orchestrated distance and approved the resignations of Novak and Varga – the only two women in top posts in his government – who were inevitably hung out to dry. Also, Orbán’s Hungary ceased funding and accrediting gender studies degrees in 2018, effectively prohibiting Hungarian universities from teaching the discipline.[12]
Salient though the issues of race, pernicious conspiracy theories like Great Replacement and gender justice are to all democrats; it were the inter-related issues of decline of living standards and revulsion at the corruption and gilded lives of the ruling party’s elites which has driven Orban from and powered his opponent into power. When Hungary’s economy was growing, little attention was paid by vox populi to the withering away of checks and balances, the clampdown on LGTB events such as the Budapest Pride March, the closure of “Soros” funded NGOs and the attempts to restrict the curricula of Central University of Europe, Budapest founded by George Soros which led to its relocation to Vienna and the prohibition of the teaching of gender ideology. But as inflation soared after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and economic stagnation set in, rumblings began over the growing disconnect between Hungarians and its ruling class. It was against this backdrop that Peter Magyar began speaking out against his former associates in Fidesz’s inner circles. As he accused Orban’s party of styling itself as champions of Hungarians, while siphoning off state funds, corruption rapidly rose to the top of Hungarians’ list of concerns and Magyar’s hastily formed party ascended to the top of the polls.[13]
Symbolic of “the limitless corruption of the whole system,” in the words of the Hungarian independent MP Akos Hadhazy, was the drone footage of four zebras darting across the property - complete with manicured gardens, swimming pool, and underground garages - of the father of Orban to where Mr Hadhazy organised a series of “safari tours” last autumn in protest. Images of zebras were soon plastered over billboards; people posted videos of their treks to spot the animals, and plush toys were sold at protests as references to the zebras became part of the common currency of conversation.[14]
In the words of President Macron of France, Viktor Orbán’s defeat “is a victory for EU values.” It offers hope to democrats everywhere that the death of democracy 21st century style is not an inevitability. That Orbán has conceded defeat thus ensuring a proper transition or changing of the guard towards a new government is worthy of comment simply because of the violation of this basic democratic procedure by Donald Trump in the wake of the 2020 Presidential Election and by dictators like the former President Maduro of Venezuela. While it is obviously very early days yet, initial soundings from the Peter Magyar in that he has pledged to change the Constitution to restrict the period of office for the Prime Minister to a maximum of two terms, to reset relations with the EU, restore an independent media and judiciary and to reform public procurement.
So to Viktor, the spoils of defeat.
References
[1] Isabel Coles. Budapest spring: Putin’s influence and European democracy at stake in Hungary poll. The Observer. 12 April 2026 pp.6-7
[2] Ibid, p.9
[3] Jon Henley and Jakub Krup. Hungary election rivals trade blows as polls point to defeat for Orbán. The Guardian. 11th April 2026 p.26
[4] Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt (2023). The Tyranny of the Minority. How to reverse an authoritarian turn and forge a democracy for all. London: Viking p.59
[5] Ibid, pp.60-61
[6] Ibid, pp.62-63
[7] Ibid, pp.63-64
[8] Ibid, p.64
[9] Ibram X. Kendi (2026). Chain of Ideas. Great Replacement Theory and the Origins of Our Authoritarian Age. London: Bodley Head p.74
[10] Ibid, p.277
[11] Ibid, pp.148-49
[12] Ibid. p.149
[13] Ashifa Kassam and Flora Garamvolgyi. The Saturday Read. Is this the end of Viktor Orban’s rule? The Guardian. 11th April 2026 pp.37-39
[1] Isabel Coles. Budapest spring: Putin’s influence and European democracy at stake in Hungary poll. The Observer. 12 April 2026 pp.6-7
[2] Ibid, p.9
[3] Jon Henley and Jakub Krup. Hungary election rivals trade blows as polls point to defeat for Orbán. The Guardian. 11th April 2026 p.26
[4] Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt (2023). The Tyranny of the Minority. How to reverse an authoritarian turn and forge a democracy for all. London: Viking p.59
[5] Ibid, pp.60-61
[6] Ibid, pp.62-63
[7] Ibid, pp.63-64
[8] Ibid, p.64
[9] Ibram X. Kendi (2026). Chain of Ideas. Great Replacement Theory and the Origins of Our Authoritarian Age. London: Bodley Head p.74
[10] Ibid, p.277
[11] Ibid, pp.148-49
[12] Ibid. p.149
[13] Ashifa Kassam and Flora Garamvolgyi. The Saturday Read. Is this the end of Viktor Orban’s rule? The Guardian. 11th April 2026 pp.37-39
[14] Ibid, p.37
⏩Barry Gilheany is a freelance writer, qualified counsellor and aspirant artist resident in Colchester where he took his PhD at the University of Essex. He is also a lifelong Leeds United supporter.
