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With Hungary’s parliamentary elections still five months away, the country is already immersed in an intense political campaign between Prime Minister viktor orban and his rival, Peter Magyar, who promises to be the biggest challenge of the nationalist leader’s career.
Elected for a first term in 1998 and then for four more terms starting in 2010, Orbán has been at the helm of Hungary for 20 years. Beloved by his supporters but accused by his critics of corruption and authoritarian tactics, he has overseen a political system in which his far-right Fidesz The party has exercised almost uncontrolled power.
But now, support for Europe’s longest-serving leader is waning amid poor economic performance and chronic inflation, and a challenger has turned the political tide by promising to dismantle Orbán’s system and put Hungary on a more prosperous, democratic track.
Magyar, a 44-year-old former Fidesz insider, told the Associated Press, “Viktor Orbán’s disgusting, corrupt government will do everything it can to preserve their stolen loot and their power, we have no doubt about that.” “This power cannot be reformed, it is unable to reconnect with people. This power has become inhuman.”
grassroots campaign
Most polls show Magyar and his Tisza party with a solid lead over Orbán’s Fidesz – an almost unprecedented feat for any opposition force in the past two decades.
Many observers in Hungary have expressed surprise at how Magyar, unlike generations of Orbán’s previous political opponents, managed to emerge from relative obscurity to create a party with such large support in less than two years.
András Biro-Nagy, director of the Budapest-based Policy Solutions think tank, says Magyar’s almost continuous “grassroots campaign” in rural Hungary – and his focus on bread-and-butter issues such as the cost of living and poor public services – has contributed to his success in smaller towns that traditionally gravitate towards Orbán’s nationalist message.
On Thursday, Magyar visited Tab, a community of less than 4,000 people in southwestern Hungary. The stop was one of dozens he plans to travel across the country on what he calls “the road to victory.”
Hundreds of people filled the city’s socialist-era community center and listened to Magyar speak for nearly two hours. As retired 76-year-old widow Erica Bognar arrived at the event, she angrily announced that her monthly pension was too little to survive, and that she “wanted a change in the system, because this system sucks.”
“People in stores everywhere are complaining that they can’t make ends meet,” she said. “We live in misery, we have been pushed into complete misery.”
Bognar’s experience reflects the experience of many Hungarians who are dissatisfied with the country’s economy. European Union About 14 billion euros ($16.2 billion) of funding for Hungary has been frozen due to law-and-order and corruption concerns, a deficit that has exacerbated long-stagnant economic performance.
Orbán’s government has tried to ease the economic pain by imposing price caps on many products, and has tried to woo voters with pre-election government spending such as low-interest loans for first-time homebuyers and eliminating income taxes for mothers with at least two children.
Nevertheless, Bognar, who says she has rarely voted in elections so far, blames Orbán’s government for the rising cost of living, and believes that if Magyars are elected, “it won’t get any worse.”
war and Peace
Orbán has tried to portray his rival as an existential threat who – through his inexperience and alleged foreign allegiances – would bankrupt the country and drag it into war in neighboring Ukraine, allegations Magyar has denied.
Unlike almost every other EU leader, Orban has refused to give Ukraine economic aid or arms to aid its defense against a full-scale invasion by Russia, and has portrayed as warmongers those countries that support Kiev.
He has also portrayed the European Union as an oppressive power, and compared the bloc to the Soviet Union, which dominated and occupied Hungary for decades in the 20th century.
Orbán has alleged that the Tisza party is nothing more than an EU project designed to topple his government in Brussels and install a puppet regime that will divert Hungarian finances to Ukraine – and even involve it directly in the war.
“Anyone who thinks they support a change in government is actually supporting war, whether they know it or not,” Orbán said in a speech to thousands of supporters in October.
“There are many Hungarians who believe that when they support the candidates of Brussels and its puppet government they are supporting a good cause. We must tell them: Brussels is not a source of help today, but a source of danger.”
Orbán’s message has been amplified by a vast pro-government media empire that has dominated Hungary’s political discourse for more than a decade, as well as taxpayer-funded campaigns that denigrate the Magyars and promote Orbán’s policies.
Balazs Orban, who is not related to the prime minister but is his political director and Fidesz campaign manager, did not respond to requests for comment.
inclined playground
Biro-Nagy said that several previous Hungarian elections had been deemed “free but not fair” by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which found a “widespread overlap” between Fidesz’s and the government’s messaging, as well as partisan news coverage that “limited the opportunity for voters to make an informed choice.”
The status of the 2026 elections “has not changed in any sense,” Biro-Nagy said. “What we see is that there is no level playing field.”
Sándor Rofriks, a member of a local Tisza activist group in Tab, said outside Magyar’s event that he believed “money is no object for Fidesz, even state money. They will spend a lot of public money on this campaign.”
Magyar himself admits that his party has fewer resources to campaign, characterizing the contest as a “David and Goliath” struggle, where “we are essentially facing a machine with a full arsenal – propaganda, secret services, unlimited government money.”
In addition to traditionally opposition liberal and centrist voters, Tisza has also reached out to disaffected Fidesz supporters and voters with more conservative views. Magyar says his party does not define itself “along ideological fault lines”, but rather campaigns on “the image of a working and humane Hungary, bringing EU money home, introducing anti-corruption measures and welcoming everyone into our community”.
Five months before the vote and Tisza still leading, Magyar said he senses a desire for change in the towns and villages he visits on his campaign tour. But despite his party’s lead, “I think you should never look down or underestimate your opponent, especially not Viktor Orbán.”
“He is an experienced player and he has a lot to lose in this election, perhaps more than just the Prime Minister’s seat,” he said.
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Bela Zandelszki contributed reporting.