India, April 12 -- Hungary's parliamentary election today has been billed as possibly the most important in the country's modern history. It is not simply a vote about who governs in Budapest; it is a referendum on a political system that has reshaped the meaning of democracy inside the European Union, and a test of whether that system can be reversed through the ballot box. For sixteen years, Viktor Orban has constructed what he proudly calls an "illiberal democracy": a model that preserved the rituals of elections while retaining power over institutions, media, and the economy. For most of that time, Hungarian elections have been competitive in theory but completely predictable in practice. Orban's dominance seemed less like a political...