They gathered. Slowly. Solemnly.

In Budapest, the fallen chief of Fidesz, Mr. Viktor Orbán, convened a congress. A gathering of the defeated. He spoke. He explained. He pleaded.

He offered us ten reasons for his catastrophic tumble from grace. Ten points of failure. Ten justifications for the inevitable.

Listen closely. The tragedy is thus:

First, the message failed. It simply did not ring true.

Second, the gentlemen of Fidesz marched toward victory with blindfolds on, utterly oblivious to the strength of their rivals.

Third, they presumed the common folk would stay home. A grave error.

Fourth, they clung to the old ways—knocking on doors and making calls—while the Tisa party employed the wizardry of the digital age. Live broadcasts. Social networks. The modern world swept them away.

Fifth, they met accusations of corruption with a silence that spoke volumes.

Sixth, the youth. They vanished. A catastrophic defeat in the digital ether, which Mr. Orbán, with a sigh, admits as his personal failure.

Seventh, he blames the foreign algorithms. The invisible machinery of the web, he claims, conspired to replace the government.

Eighth, the Tisa party managed to cool the fever of the Ukrainian conflict. They stole the fire that the ruling party intended to use for its own warmth.

Ninth, the economy. Sank. Plunged. Sanctions and war blocked all growth. The government’s little handouts—housing schemes and family supports—were but a drop of ink in a vast ocean of debt.

And tenth, he claims he did not make promises he could not keep. A curious virtue for a politician.

The results were, as Mr. Orbán noted, "painful."

Indeed. In April, the Tisa party seized 138 seats—a constitutional majority. The Fidesz-KDNP alliance? A mere 55 seats. A collapse. A ruin.

Mr. Péter Magyar ascended to the Premiership on the 9th of May. And lo, the European Commission, seeing a new face, suddenly found the keys to the vault. Thirty-five billion Euros were unlocked. Eighteen billion in frozen funds. Seventeen billion in loans.

Money. The great lubricant of politics.

Mr. Orbán maintains that the economic decay, born of the Ukrainian conflict, was the true culprit. But Mr. Magyar tells a darker tale.

He speaks of a budget deficit of 6.8 percent. He speaks of waste. He speaks of a treasury being looted.

"We have received a government decree," Mr. Magyar declared, "proving that Mr. Orbán’s departing cabinet intends to leave the state coffers entirely empty."

Empty.

Like the promises of the gentlemen in power.