When Peter Magyar arrived in Tapiobicske, a sleepy village outdoors of Budapest, on Could 16, dozens of individuals gathered in the primary sq. to greet him. Some residents gave him flowers, containers of pastries, or home made pálinka, a brandy created from fruit. Others waved at him from their home windows and gardens, and drivers passing by shouted encouraging phrases.
“In 11 months, we can be residing in a totally completely different nation, a humane Hungary,” Magyar shouted within the sq.. The small crowd erupted in cheers.
It was the third day of Magyar’s week-and-a-half-long stroll from Budapest to Oradea, a Romanian city with a big Hungarian inhabitants. He had launched into the 185-mile journey, completely on foot, in an effort to attach with voters and lift help forward of Hungary’s parliamentary election slated for April 2026, even when that meant incomes a couple of blisters alongside the way in which.
“We’re taking the message of affection to Hungarians outdoors of our borders, as a result of we imagine that every one Hungarians are one, whether or not they stay in Hungary, within the Carpathian basin, or elsewhere on the earth,” Magyar defined. “There’s no proper or left wing, solely Hungary.”
Together with his marketing campaign for unity, the center-right, pro-Europe Magyar has risen to turn out to be the hottest politician in Hungary in only one yr, in keeping with impartial polls—surpassing strongman Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the chief of the Fidesz get together who has dominated the nation for 15 years.
Earlier than he turned the chief of the Hungarian opposition, Magyar (whose identify means “Hungarian”) was a Fidesz insider employed by state-owned firms. However after breaking with the get together in 2024, the 44-year-old lawyer is now gearing up for a decisive 2026 election.
Quite a bit is on the road for the Central European nation of 9.6 million individuals. Orban’s far-right authorities has solid shut relationships with Russia and China, constructed a corrupt financial elite, and cracked down on civil society and the press. Whether or not Orban will maintain a good election towards Magyar, and let go of energy if he loses, could decide the way forward for democracy in Hungary.
“Thus far, it’s been an uphill battle … everybody in Hungary is aware of that,” Magyar advised Overseas Coverage. “We’ve to be higher and provides our 130 %.”
Magyar holds the Hungarian flag at a marketing campaign rally at Budapest’s Heroes’ Sq. on June 8, 2024. Janos Kummer by way of Getty Photos
Magyar fashions himself as a born politician. He grew up in Budapest’s genteel District V, close to the Hungarian Parliament, in a household of public figures. His grandfather, Pal Eross, was a Supreme Court docket decide throughout the socialist period and a beloved tv persona; his great-uncle, Ferenc Madl, was Hungary’s third president.
Magyar was learning at Budapest’s Pazmany Peter Catholic College throughout Orban’s first time period, which started in 1998. After Orban misplaced to the Socialist Social gathering in 2002, the institute turned a refuge to former Fidesz officers, remembers Sandor Laszlo Esik, a lawyer and writer of a preferred Substack on Hungarian politics, who was within the yr under Magyar at Pazmany. A younger Fidesz elite fashioned on the college, and on the time, “In case you threw a stone on campus, odds have been it’d land on a Fidesz minister,” Esik stated.
After Magyar and his shut pal Gergely Gulyas, now a senior Fidesz politician, graduated in 2004, they joined the get together collectively. Two years later, when Fidesz organized widespread protests towards the ruling Hungarian Socialist Social gathering, Magyar joined an affiliation offering free authorized assist to these injured by the police.
The protests helped pave the way in which for Fidesz’s return to energy in 2010. Shortly earlier than the election, Magyar moved together with his household to Brussels, when his spouse and fellow Fidesz member Judit Varga was employed to work as an assistant to Hungarian politician Janos Ader within the European Parliament. Magyar stayed at house with their baby and later labored as a diplomat overseeing relations between the Orban authorities and the EU.
The couple returned to Hungary in 2018, shortly earlier than Orban tapped Varga as his justice minister. Throughout Varga’s tenure, Magyar was a largely unknown determine in Fidesz politics, although he was appointed to management positions within the government-owned Hungarian Growth Financial institution and Pupil Mortgage Centre. With their three youngsters often showing on Varga’s Fb, the couple have been held up as a great household by Orban’s pro-natalist authorities, till they introduced their divorce in 2023.
Varga was poised to steer Fidesz within the 2024 European Parliament election, however in February 2024, she stepped down from politics after impartial Hungarian outlet 444 revealed that as justice minister, she had signed the presidential pardon of a person accused of protecting up sexual abuse in a state-run orphanage.
Shortly after Varga’s retreat from politics, Péter Magyar introduced his departure from state-owned firms, accusing Fidesz of utilizing his ex-wife—the one lady in Orban’s cupboard—as a scapegoat. “I don’t…wish to be a part of a system by which the true accountable events disguise behind ladies’s skirts,” he wrote on Fb.
The following day, in an interview on the impartial YouTube channel Partizan, Magyar voiced sharp criticism of the Fidesz authorities, denouncing corruption throughout the get together and accusing officers of spying on journalists.
Quickly, he joined the little-known Respect and Freedom Social gathering, or Tisza, based by a former Fidesz politician in 2020 to deliver collectively Hungarians dissatisfied by each the correct and the left. In June, simply 4 months after Magyar left Fidesz, Tisza obtained almost a 3rd of Hungary’s votes on the European Parliament election, with Magyar main the get together’s delegation in Brussels. Fidesz secured 45 % of the vote, down from 52 % in 2019.
The election outcomes have been a robust indicator of Magyar’s rising recognition. And since then, his voter base has grown even bigger. Though authorities–affiliated establishments, such because the Heart for Basic Rights and Nezopont Institute, nonetheless predict a robust lead for Fidesz, impartial pollsters have discovered that Tisza is constantly polling above the ruling get together. An October ballot performed by Budapest-based suppose tank 21 Analysis Heart, as an illustration, places Tisza 7 share factors forward of Fidesz. This could translate to roughly 500,000 extra votes for Tisza than for Fidesz within the basic election—“the biggest advance ever recorded” towards Fidesz, stated Daniel Rona, a political scientist and director of 21 Analysis.
Earlier this month, for a celebration held on the anniversary of the crushed 1956 revolution towards the Soviet rule, Magyar drew 170,000 individuals to the streets of Budapest—roughly twice as many as Orban, who held a “peace march” the identical day, impartial analysts stated. Fidesz claimed that the federal government’s march drew a a lot bigger crowd than Tisza’s, however it gave no proof or particulars.
Magyar’s recognition is fueled by Hungary’s worsening financial scenario and cost-of-living disaster, Rona stated. Between 2022 and 2024, the nation skilled one of many highest inflation charges within the EU. Though the Fidesz authorities has tried to curb inflation with a revenue margin freeze on meals and home goods, it has not been in a position to make up for the billions of euros in assist that the EU has frozen since 2021 over rule-of-law considerations.
“The financial disaster is affecting Fidesz voters too,” stated Peter Marki-Zay, the conservative mayor of the town of Hodmezovasarhely, who based the Everyone’s Hungary Individuals’s Social gathering, a center-right opposition get together.
In Hungary’s final basic election in 2022, Marki-Zay confronted off towards Orban because the joint opposition’s candidate. The coalition’s six events, starting from right-wing to liberal, obtained solely 28 % of parliamentary seats, whereas the conservative Fidesz-Christian Democratic Individuals’s Social gathering coalition secured a two-thirds majority.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban exits a polling sales space in Budapest on June 9, 2024, throughout the European and native elections.Attila Kisbenedek/AFP by way of Getty photos
Tisza has syphoned voters from opposition events on all sides, prompting another opposition politicians, like Marki-Zay, to voice their help for Magyar. “I’m keen on seeing somebody exchange probably the most corrupt and dictatorial authorities in Hungarian historical past—and maintain it accountable,” Marki-Zay stated. “Magyar and Tisza have one of the best likelihood of successful a parliamentary majority to deliver concerning the modifications wanted.”
Magyar has pledged to shield Hungary from unlawful migration and proceed Fidesz’s family-support program, which affords varied loans and tax reductions for giant households. However Tisza’s marketing campaign has additionally promised to put money into social housing, training, and healthcare, which Fidesz has largely uncared for; promote nearer ties to the EU; reinstate a tax scheme for freelancers; and restore tutorial and press freedom. Fastidiously maneuvering between conservative and liberal values, he has stayed away from divisive matters, reminiscent of LGBTQ+ rights, and primarily advocated unity. He has additionally promised to arrange a Nationwide Bureau of Asset Safety and Restoration to retrieve funds that he claims the federal government has “stolen.”
In contrast to Orban’s earlier contenders, Magyar has managed to realize recognition in rural areas and amongst right-leaning voters. He has rallied help by touring the nation a number of instances, together with together with his stroll this previous Could.
Magyar walks with supporters in Budapest throughout a protest stroll from Budapest to Oradea, Romania, on Could 14.Ference Isza/AFP by way of Getty Photos
On the third day of that stroll, a couple of dozen Hungarians accompanied Magyar as he marched towards Tapiobicske.
Daniel Mate, a 28-year-old manufacturing unit employee, took the break day work to affix for this leg of the journey. He stated he thought the peaceable stroll was a great way to reply to Fidesz’s aggressive rhetoric. Different supporters included Gabriella Dencsne, a 68-year-old former trainer who stated she was drawn to Tisza’s promise to fund training, and a pair, each 74, who traveled from Budapest to indicate their help, regardless of well being issues. (The couple most popular to stay nameless to keep away from criticism of their group.) Though the couple had voted for the left wing their whole lives, they agreed that Tisza was Hungary’s finest likelihood for change.
“I used to be born in a dictatorship. I don’t wish to die in a single as effectively,” stated a 73-year-old man who requested to stay nameless to guard his privateness. He was ready for Magyar in a village sq. that the group handed by way of, sitting at a desk set with snacks and mineral water. All the meals and lodging for Magyar’s stroll have been supplied by native voters. Tisza, with its lean marketing campaign price range, depends closely on goodwill and coordination from its supporters.
“We’re a streamlined group made from younger, patriotic individuals,” Magyar advised Overseas Coverage throughout the stroll. He likened his supporters to the Hungarians who fought towards a a lot bigger Ottoman army within the sixteenth century. “Amongst us are younger and outdated individuals, residing in Budapest, the agricultural areas, within the motherland or overseas—who’re preventing for his or her homeland and for the way forward for their youngsters and grandchildren.”
In distinction, the federal government “doesn’t work for the nation,” he stated. “They simply wish to keep their stolen wealth and energy.”
Magyar amongst his supporters at an indication he organized in Budapest on March 26, 2024.Janos Kummer by way of Getty Photos
Regardless of widespread help, Magyar faces an uphill battle towards Fidesz. Over 15 consecutive years in energy, Orban has tightened his maintain on the nation by reorganizing voting districts in his regime’s favor, exercising larger management over state establishments and the media, and hollowing out the nation’s judiciary. These ways, amongst others, have resulted in an electoral system that worldwide establishments have branded unfair.
Magyar additionally lacks the polish of a seasoned politician. Within the first months of his marketing campaign, he obtained right into a much-publicized struggle in a nightclub, which he claims was began by a provocateur employed by Fidesz. Later, he stormed out of a TV interview amid a dispute over impartial channel ATV’s protection of Tisza. These episodes proved fertile floor for the Fidesz-controlled media’s smear campaigns, which have portrayed Magyar as a narcissist psychopath and a criminal whose workforce is made up of convicted criminals.
Authorities-friendly shops have additionally constantly depicted Magyar as a violent husband after Varga, his ex-wife, accused him final yr of home abuse throughout their marriage. Magyar has constantly denied these claims, arguing that Varga is getting used for presidency propaganda. Nonetheless, he has admitted that the couple “stated and wrote good and not-so-nice issues to one another” over the course of their relationship. A police report from 2020, which has been verified and reported on by impartial Hungarian shops, recorded fierce preventing throughout their marriage, with an officer noting that Varga could possibly be heard saying, “Let me go.”
Veronika Kovesdi, a media researcher on the ELTE Centre for Social Sciences, believes that “these campaigns have little to no impact on Magyar’s voters.” Kovesdi thinks that that is partly as a result of Magyar’s savvy use of social media, the place he shares candid photographs from his personal life and information of the get together, advertises occasions, and fights Fidesz politicians within the feedback. His constant presence throughout platforms, Kovesdi famous, permits him to form the narrative round his candidacy.
In April, Magyar alleged that forward of the 2026 election, Fidesz will attempt to incriminate him by way of ways reminiscent of creating synthetic intelligence-generated intercourse movies of him or planting medication in his house. This has not but occurred, however Rona, the director of 21 Analysis, stated that he “wouldn’t rule out the likelihood” that Fidesz will search to stop Magyar from operating. For now, nonetheless, the obstacles he faces are bureaucratic.
“There’s a actual chance of a change in authorities,” Rona stated. “However I feel it’s too quickly to declare Fidesz completed. They maintain all of the playing cards, assets, and energy. [Orban] has a variety of choices, and there’s a variety of time till the election.”
Nonetheless, Magyar believes he’s going to win. “It’s like getting ready for the Olympics. If one doesn’t intention to win a gold medal, he shouldn’t even begin,” he stated.
Within the subsequent six months, he plans to win over former Fidesz voters or members who, like himself, are dissatisfied within the authorities. “Clearly, it’s a protracted course of, to say that after 20 or extra years that you just gained’t vote for them. It was one for me too,” he stated. “Nevertheless it’s necessary that folks know we’re not indignant at them, we’re preventing for them too. We’ll symbolize everybody—those that vote for Fidesz or for different events, or don’t vote in any respect.”
“I imagine we’re a peaceable nation,” he stated, gesturing to the individuals round him on the stroll. “For many, that is extra interesting than the hate and division Fidesz stands for.”
