Orban Visits Dodik After Election Defeat in Hungary
The former Hungarian prime minister spent Friday evening as a guest of the SNSD leader. Dodik posted photos and thanked Orban on behalf of the people of Republika Srpska.
Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister who lost power in April after sixteen years, spent Friday evening, October 30, visiting Milorad Dodik, president of the SNSD party, together with his wife. The meeting became known through Dodik’s post on X, published the same day with photos from the gathering.
For Serbia, as a neighbor of Republika Srpska, the visit deserves attention for one reason: during his time in office Orban openly backed Dodik, including during Dodik’s clashes with the state institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina and with the international community, and he no longer leads the government of a European Union member state.
What did Dodik post on X?
Alongside the photos, Dodik wrote:
“My family and I are honored to have been visited tonight by great friends, Viktor Orban and his wife. True friends are friends for life, and my friend Viktor and his family are exactly that kind of friends.”
In the same post he said he had passed on to his guest the gratitude of the people of Republika Srpska. “I also conveyed to him the gratitude of our people for everything he did for Republika Srpska as prime minister of Hungary,” Dodik wrote.
The photos that appeared on social media show a relaxed gathering with rakija and roast meat on a spit, and in the one that shows Dodik and Orban together, a spit roast stands in the background. Dodik did not say what the two politicians discussed, and he did not announce any political agreement.
Where did the meeting take place?
Sources disagree on the location. The portal Hercegovina.info, citing published information, reports that the meeting took place at Dodik’s estate in Bakinci near Laktasi. MG Forum, on the other hand, writes that Orban traveled to Banja Luka and was a guest with his wife at the SNSD leader’s family home. The text of Dodik’s post, as the sources relay it, does not name a place, so the discrepancy cannot be resolved for now.
What came before this meeting?
The two politicians met on earlier visits, and in June 2023 Orban also stayed at Milorad Dodik’s family home. Dodik has repeatedly said he considers Hungary and its then prime minister one of Republika Srpska’s most important international partners, and under Orban’s government Hungary developed close political and economic ties with Republika Srpska, including cooperation in agriculture and energy.
Orban lost the parliamentary elections in Hungary on April 12, 2026. His Fidesz party was defeated by the Tisza party, led by Peter Magyar, which ended sixteen years of Fidesz rule. Magyar took office as prime minister on May 9, and his party won a two-thirds majority in parliament.
Dodik, for his part, lost his post as president of Republika Srpska last year, after a final verdict by the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina for failing to comply with the decisions of the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina. He remained at the head of the SNSD.
Orban’s contacts with the political leadership of Republika Srpska continued after the April elections, MG Forum reports. Neither source says whether Friday’s meeting was their first since the election defeat.
