In Hungary, How Péter Magyar Ambushed Orbán

June 9, 2024 marked the end of one of the most extraordinary periods in contemporary Hungarian politics. With Péter Magyar and his new Tisza party having won 29.5% of the vote in the European election, this renegade former member of the ruling elite confirmed his explosive entry into Hungarian politics, and established himself as Viktor Orbán’s main opponent in the run-up to the 2026 parliamentary election. When the results were announced, Magyar praised the “cataclysm” his party had caused, before going off to dance with his supporters in a festive and celebratory atmosphere.

On paper, however, victory went to Fidesz, the party of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who won by a large margin, with 44.6% and 11 MEPs out of 21: “The European record”, as the Prime Minister likes to think. But in practice, this result is felt and seen as a failure. Although Fidesz passed the symbolic two-million-voter mark — a figure not reached in 14 years and mainly due to an unusually high turnout for a European election, largely explained by municipal elections being held at the same time — it remains its lowest score ever for this type of election, down sharply from the previous European election (52.6%). The general trend is indeed that of a relative decline in the vote for Viktor Orbán, which can be seen at all levels, from the capital to towns with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants. In municipal elections, results were also mixed. While Fidesz recaptured Miskolc, the country’s third-largest city, it lost the prestigious and wealthy city of Győr in the west, and was unable to win back the capital, where the ecologist Gergely Karácsony was re-elected by just 300 votes.

Fidesz is certainly not threatened in the short term, and can even be satisfied with a comfortable victory just a few months after one of the party’s most serious political crises. In February, the revelation that a presidential pardon had been granted to the accomplice of a convicted pedophile by President Katalin Novák led to her resignation. In a country where Fidesz prides itself on absolute moral superiority over its opponents — particularly on the family issues that its voters hold dear — the party had no choice but to admit its mistake. The affair shocked the population so deeply that it led to one of the largest demonstrations ever organized in Budapest, initiated not by the opposition parties, but by influencers and artists. Anger and disbelief at the government spread throughout the party ranks, raising the prospect of complicated elections in the spring.

Viewed through the lens of this unprecedented crisis, the results of the governing party, which has been in power for fourteen years, testify to the resilience of Viktor Orbán’s regime. But the unexpected rise of Péter Magyar has radically transformed the face of the opposition, upsetting the political balance that has existed in Hungary since 2010. Since his arrival on the scene in February 2024, the country has experienced a number of months that mark a break with the previous fourteen years of Hungary under Orbán.

The phenomenal rise of Péter Magyar

In January 2024, the opposition was in ruins. After the unprecedented debacle of the 2022 legislative election, when it had stood united for the first time, its parties were descending into division and quarrels.

In many polls, the second most popular party often turned out to be Mi Hazánk (Our Homeland), a neo-fascist party and surprise guest in parliament in 2022. Despite two years of record inflation, which impoverished large swathes of the population, Fidesz continues to be by far the most popular party, building on its landslide victory in 2022. All was well for the government, until the pedophilia scandal forced the president to resign. Judit Varga, who was Minister of Justice at the time of the affair, was brought down with her. Although she had been appointed by the Prime Minister to lead Fidesz’s list for the European election, she also left political life. It was only after her withdrawal that Péter Magyar — her ex-husband — was able to emerge.

The Magyar phenomenon debuted on YouTube. One of the influencers behind the large-scale demonstration on Heroes’ Square was former actor Márton Gulyás, head of the hugely popular Partizán YouTube channel, which has become one of Hungary’s leading independent media outlets. His announcement on a weekday that a man by the name of Péter Magyar would be appearing on Sunday evening aroused great curiosity; Magyar may have been unknown to the general public, but his ex-wife is one of the country’s most famous politicians. However, there is one iron clad rule in Orbán’s Hungary: no member of the Fidesz system ever grants an interview to the opposition media — least of all to the channel most valued by the regime’s opponents.      

Broadcast live on YouTube, the interview caused quite a stir. In 24 hours, it received one million views, and in three days, two million — in a country with a population of less than 10 million. In it, the public discovered an affable man in a white dress shirt who, in a deep and confident voice, delivers a fierce diatribe against the regime. Without attacking Viktor Orbán by name, he developed what were to become the main themes of his political message: the enrichment of the “oligarchy” through corruption; the stifling of democratic life, in particular through the figure of Antal Rogán, the powerful shadow minister in charge of intelligence and nicknamed the “minister of propaganda”; and the incompetence of the opposition parties, which he considers to be profiteering and equally responsible for the current situation. Aware of the historical significance of this discussion, presenter Márton Gulyás struggled to conceal his astonishment during the interview. With the possible exception of the dispute in 2015 between Orbán and the oligarch Lajos Simicska, his right-hand man, never before has an official of the system defected to voice such fierce criticism of the regime.

Since February 11th, Hungarian political life has been turned upside down. Péter Magyar’s political ambitions, which were not immediately explicit, quickly became very clear as he gave interviews to the few opposition media outlets that were more than happy to give him media overexposure. On March 15th, Hungary’s national holiday celebrating the declaration of independence in 1848, he even managed to steal the show from the government by organizing a huge demonstration in the heart of the capital. Invoking the glorious memory of the 1848 revolutionaries, he announced his intention to take part in the European election. He acquired a dormant political party named Tisza, after one of the country’s major waterways. His ever-growing base of supporters spontaneously adopted the slogan “Tisza is overflowing”.^.

Péter Magyar has flooded the public debate. For the first time, the Fidesz propaganda machine, which has always succeeded in dictating the political agenda, is on its back foot. This time, it’s an opponent of the regime who’s setting the agenda. So much so that he succeeded in pressuring public television — which is completely in the hands of the government — to organize a televised debate between all the candidates, including Fidesz. To everyone’s surprise, his request was accepted. For the first time in fifteen years, Hungarians were able to watch all the candidates running in an election on public television.

It very quickly became clear that his popularity was not limited to the capital. Wherever he went in the provinces, including small and medium-sized towns, people flocked to listen to a curiosity: a city dweller from Budapest in a white button-down shirt who had turned away from his former friends in the Fidesz party. A lawyer from a wealthy and conservative family from the capital, 43-year-old Péter Magyar, who grew up after the change of regime and has benefited enormously from Viktor Orbán’s reign, exemplifies the second generation of Fidesz members. Deeply conservative, Péter Magyar, in the midst of his diatribes denouncing the regime, does not hesitate to acknowledge the many points on which he remains in agreement with Fidesz. Like Péter Márki-Zay, the conservative mayor propelled to the head of the opposition coalition in 2022, Péter Magyar is calling for a return to Fidesz’s roots, when it was still just a Christian-conservative party that respected the democratic game. Indeed, Magyar explicitly states his wish to “return to the Orbán of 1998, when economic growth was remarkable, and there was no threat to democracy.”

As a right-wing supporter betrayed by Orbán, he makes no secret of his deep disdain for the left-wing opposition parties, whom he holds equally responsible for the current situation. Asked about the government’s propaganda methods and the use of Pegasus spyware to target critics of the regime, he has said that he doesn’t necessarily condemn these methods, as they can sometimes be justified. In addition to his conservative vision, he makes sure to emphasize his faith in democracy and social values. In response to what he denounces as corruption and the enrichment of an elite, he calls for better redistribution policies to benefit the most disadvantaged. For the time being, Péter Magyar’s political agenda is not so much clear and detailed as it is a powerful statement of dissent that calls for unity. Time and again, he repeats his belief that the regime is fallible, and that not only can it be toppled, but that it is even on the verge of collapse — corroded by the cronyism and moral bankruptcy of its leaders. Unlike Péter Márki-Zay in 2022 who, despite a similar discourse, suffered from vague rhetoric and a lack of authority, Péter Magyar is a charismatic speaker who expresses himself with confidence and conviction.

Fidesz falters

Confronted with this surge in power, Fidesz was clearly caught off guard for the first time. First, it counter-attacked with a now routine maneuver: attacking an individual ad hominem, setting the whole propaganda machine in motion. Péter Magyar was portrayed as a depressed man who had lost everything and was making a last ditch go of it. His ex-wife, Judit Varga, gave an hour-long interview on public television in which she portrayed him as possessive and mentally unstable, as well as having assaulted and beaten her on several occasions. Magyar dismissed her accusations, claiming that the regime was manipulating his ex-wife. As it turned out, these accusations had little effect, as Magyar and his party continued to climb in the polls.

Faced with this situation, Viktor Orbán himself had to get personally involved in the campaign. Whereas in 2022 the Prime Minister had the luxury of campaigning only ten days before the election, this time he was much more active well in advance of the vote. Above all, the government’s communications machinery stepped up its media blitz even further. Already adept at the “carpet-bombing” tactic, this time the government’s propaganda reached an unprecedented level, spending over 5 million euros advertising on social media platforms. The Fidesz campaign had a single message: the war in Ukraine threatened to spread because the opposition and the “dollar left” in the hands of the Americans and “Brussels” were all “pro-war parties”, unlike Fidesz, which was a “peace party”. To vote for Fidesz would be to vote for peace, and therefore, for life. To vote for the opposition would be to vote for war, and therefore for death. Fidesz’s strategy was simple: the European election was a matter of life and death.

How Tisza overwhelmed the traditional opposition

Tisza has successfully created a somewhat bipartisan situation, with Fidesz leading by less than 15 points — the first time this has happened since 2010. Of course, there have been a number of elections where the combined results of all the opposition parties resulted in the same situation, or even an advantage for the opposition. But therein lies the rub: for the first time, instead of a myriad of small parties, Fidesz is being challenged by a single large party, with a strong leadership and a clear ideological line. The parliamentary voting system — half of which is winner take all — favors large parties, giving Tisza an unprecedented advantage over traditional opposition parties. Furthermore, where traditional opposition parties have always struggled to perform well in the regions, the Tisza party has surpassed all predictions. In the west, in the wealthy city of Győr, Tisza (36%) trails Fidesz by just four points (40%). In the country’s second-largest city and traditional Fidesz stronghold, Debrecen, at the other end of the country, Tisza is only three points behind. In around sixty towns, Péter Magyar outperformed his national average and Fidesz slipped farther behind in those areas than elsewhere — revealing that the Tisza Party has indeed succeeded in attracting pro-Orbán voters.

Even more than Fidesz voters, it is clear that Péter Magyar has largely absorbed opposition voters, posing an existential threat to many historic parties. LMP, the environmentalist party that rose to popularity in the early 2010s, failed to make any gains — either at the municipal or European levels. Jobbik, the former far-right party that, from 2014 to 2018, became the leading opposition party following its ideological recallibration, achieved insignificant results, confirming the evaporation of its militant base. Momentum, a liberal centrist party that seemed to attract young people at the turn of the decade, failed to reach the 5% threshold in the European election and held on to just two districts in Budapest, while performing relatively well in the provinces. Given that they are still represented in parliament, they will benefit from funding for the next general election in 2026, but their continued existence has become anachronistic. On the other hand, the neo-fascist Our Homeland party, whose platform is an even more radical and extreme version of the Fidesz one, solidified its base with 5% of votes, allowing it to send an MEP to Brussels. The spoof Two-Tailed Dog party failed to reach the required threshold in the European election, but did well in the municipal elections, notably in Budapest, where it won the 12th district.

“It’s clear that, for the opposition, a new era is beginning, and that things are no longer what they used to be,” remarked the narrowly re-elected mayor of Budapest, Gergely Karácsony, on the emergence of Péter Magyar. According to him, the Tisza party is currently in a “destructive” phase, which is affecting Fidesz “a little”, but the opposition “more than anything else”. This long-standing opposition figure took the opportunity to make it clear that he had no plans to play a role in the 2026 parliamentary election. All eyes are now on the only traditional opposition party that is putting up some resistance: the Social Democrats of the Democratic Coalition (DK), a party controlled by former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány (2004-2009) and his wife, Klára Dobrev, who won 8% of the vote at the European election.

In many respects, this liberal left-wing party, which has always aspired to be the leading opposition party and to become a true grass roots competitor to Fidesz, has been one of the mainstays of Orbanism’s political equilibrium for the past 14 years. Even today, Ferenc Gyurcsány remains one of the most divisive political figures in the country’s recent history, and his presence within the opposition has always been a decisive factor in the failure to achieve lasting party unity, as he is such a repulsive figure for many voters. However, no political figure had yet succeeded in dethroning Gyurcsány from his role as the opposition’s figurehead. From his very first media appearance, Péter Magyar has been careful to position himself at arm’s length from both Victor Orbán and Ferenc Gyurcsány, both of whom he sees as the embodiment of an era in Hungarian history that is now over. It’s a safe bet that Magyar will forever refuse to ally himself with the Democratic Coalition, not so much because of strong ideological differences, but because the political cost of allying himself with Ferenc Gyurcsány is known all too well in Hungary.

In Hungary, Orbán’s downfall could come from the right

Nevertheless, insofar as this election confirms the rightward trend in Hungary’s political landscape — the combined result of all left-wing parties in the European elections was around 16% — the most likely outcome is that DK will manage to survive in this small segment in the medium term. This state of affairs seems to discredit the lesson Ferenc Gyurcsány drew from the parliamentary election, when he declared that only a truly left-wing party could defeat Orbán at the ballot box. This conclusion seemed reasonable not only after Péter Márki-Zay’s defeat in 2022, but also the defeat of nationalist Gábor Vona in 2018 as the leader of Jobbik. These two opponents had both tried to overtake Orbán through righteousness, by proposing an alternative policy which was ideologically similar to Orbán, but within a democratic framework and free of corruption. This strategy largely failed. Neither one could compete with Viktor Orbán’s radicalism. Meanwhile, all things being equal, the Polish case of Donald Tusk’s center-right coalition’s victory over the far-right PiS, as well as Péter Magyar’s performance in the European election, suggest that an electoral upset for Orbán could well come from competition with a right-wing opponent.

The die is far from cast for 2026, however. Péter Magyar is benefiting from a protest movement, which is by its very nature unstable, and which he managed to harness for one election with a populist discourse directed against both the ruling elite and the former elite represented by the traditional opposition parties. Moreover, this was a mid-term European election in which many Fidesz supporters were either unable to vote, or, as an exception, decided to vote for another party. The setting of the parliamentary election will be very different, and will largely depend on Magyar’s ability to consolidate his party and its activist base.

The first six months of 2024 have upended the Orbán regime’s political equilibrium. Although Orbán has experienced numerous political crises, no opposition politician has ever been able to exploit them to penalize the government party. This time, a government scandal has resulted in the opposition’s political revival to the advantage of a charismatic politician, a renegade of the system, who poses a credible threat of penalizing Fidesz at the ballot box. Isolated within the European arena and facing a difficult economic situation made worse by the suspension of a portion of European funds, Viktor Orbán admitted as much the day after the election: Péter Magyar had “made life difficult”.