An estimated 150,000 people took to the streets in Budapest in support of victims of child abuse on February 16, calling for a "just and healthy society". It was the biggest rally against Viktor Orban's regime since he took office in 2010, with Budapest’s iconic Heroes’ Square and the large section of the Andrassy boulevard  filled with people, many of them in their early 20s.

The protest was organised by prominent Hungarian YouTubers and influencers to speak out for the protection of victims, and in favour of transparency, human decency and honest social dialogue. The slogan of the demonstration was "There are monsters outside".

The scale of the protest surpassed all expectations and showed that online influencers can have a real mobilising force, especially on the younger, politically less affiliated groups.

It came just a week after the biggest scandal rocking Hungary’s politics in the last decade which led to the resignation of Hungarian President Katalin Novak, who was forced out for giving clemency to Endre Konya, deputy director of a children’s home, who covered up sexual abuse of his boss for years. The scandal also led to the end of the political life of former justice minister Judit Varga, who was supposed to lead Fidesz’s list in the European parliamentary elections.

The scandal is threatening the very foundations of the regime, as Fidesz has made child protection one of the cornerstones of its political agenda. Orban has positioned himself as a protector of Christian values against Western liberalism and said Hungary will defend its children from Western LGBT propaganda.

Just before the protest kicked off, Zoltan Balog, a former minister between 2012 and 2018 and the president of the Synod of the Reformed Church, stepped down after coming under fire from within his church. Balog, who was an adviser to the president, acknowledged that he had backed granting a pardon to Konya.

The resignations did little to calm public sentiment, and neither did the government’s proposal to tighten regulation. In a bid to contain the political fallout, Orban submitted a constitutional amendment to parliament last week, depriving the president of the right to pardon crimes committed against children. 

This came two days before Katalin Novak was forced to step down and was the first sign that Orban was withdrawing his support of the president he appointed to the post less than two years ago.

Speakers at Friday’s rally accused the state of grossly neglecting child protection and called for systematic reforms. "We have entrusted the education of children to society, and unfortunately we have failed," said Marton Gulyas, the leader of the leading YouTube channel Partizan.

YouTuber Edina Pottyondy, a former board member of the liberal Momentum party renowned for her razor-sharp sarcasm in her videos, delivered the most powerful speech of the evening. She criticised the absence of an independent investigation into the decision behind the president's pardon, as it remains unknown who else lobbied for the clemency, as Varga was against the presidential pardon.

Pottonydi said real child protection would be the improvement of education, the social and healthcare sectors and child protection authorities, but the state and its ruling party are occupied and demonising its political opponents and gay bashing, referring to anti-LGTB regulation in 2021, which conflated homosexuality with paedophilia.

She chided the caste system that had been built up during Orban’s reign, which she said bore the traits of a feudal society where different rules apply to "noblemen, priests and landlords" or in other words cronies and privileged regime insiders.

Hungary’s pop sensation Azariah, who sold out Puskas Arena three times, addressed the crowd in a video message, saying that the government "was using parents' concern to incite against something, which is then converted into political gains".

Organisers collected HUF100mn (€260,000) from donations for young homeless people, former victims of sexual abuse, to find a home.

The area near the Danube bank on the Buda side of the capital near Chain Bridge was cordoned off heavily. The demonstration ended at just after 8pm, but afterwards a few hundred people made their way to the Fidesz HQ in the adjacent street, blocked by a police line. The crowd chanted, "Down with Fidesz", "You are protecting paedophiles" to a wall of policemen. Minor scuffles broke out, but no one was arrested and the crowd dispersed at 10 pm.

Leaders of all major opposition parties showed up in the crowd. Organisers asked opposition party supporters to leave party flags or badges at home, to preserve the independent nature of the demonstration, yet pro-Orban media labelled the gathering as an anti-government protest led by the leftist influencers and cast many of the organisers as LBTQ lobbyists.

The extreme polarisation of society and the pervasive tribal mentality will be the biggest obstacles to overcome in the coming years, according to some comments. This toxic atmosphere has alienated a large part of Hungarian society – especially the below-30-age group – from public life and apathy has played into the hands of the ruling radical rightwing party, which has built up a united and committed core base over the years with its vast propaganda machine after eliminating several independent media outlets.

It will be up to Hungary’s fragmented and divided opposition to continue the momentum and keep this issue on the agenda, while Fidesz propaganda is conveying the ruling party’s message that the issue has been resolved with the resignations, analysts said.

This was also the main narrative of the prime minister in his annual state of the nation speech a day after. Orban did not comment on the resignations of the two most prominent Fidesz women politicians.

The paedophilia scandal currently causing outrage in Hungary has run its course, Orban said, adding that Novak had made a responsible decision in stepping down. This was the "correct move, but also a big loss for Hungary", he said, adding that "good people also make bad decisions". Novak and Varga had greater dignity in their little fingers than all the leaders on the left, he went on.

"We need to comb through and supplement our laws aimed at protecting our children, from the constitution to ministerial decrees," he said, calling for a new child protection legislative package to "be submitted to parliament".

Orban has "failed to address the cardinal question: why the accomplice of a paedophile was granted a presidential pardon," the Democratic Coalition (DK) said in a statement after the speech. The prime minister’s critics say Orban must bear the political consequences, as there are simply no autonomous players in the centralised power structure he built up.

Hungarian society had been baffled by the presidential pardon, but "inevitably" the president and the former justice minister had had to take responsibility and had done so "in exemplary fashion", Prime Minister's Office leader Gergely Gulyas said at a press conference on Friday.

Gulyas said the prime minister learned about the pardon in the press, adding that neither Novak nor Zoltan Balog had consulted with him on the issue. Gulyas also noted he did not know whether any member of the government had asked Novak about the reason for the pardon.

Yet despite the government's denial, many find this explanation unreal and suspect that Orban had to know about the case, at least when Varga countersigned the clemency as she had first opposed it, according to her  ex-husband Peter Magyar in a YouTube video. Also, there are indications that the Orban's brother had a long-standing contact with  Konya, an ethnic Hungarian from Romania. Boys from the children's home were guests of the wrestling club run by the prime minister's brother.