Peter Magyar’s new political party could win 25-30% of the vote in Hungary’s European Parliament elections on June 9, which would completely transform the country’s politics and force Hungarian strongman Viktor Orban to review his strategy for the 2026 general elections.

After winding up an unprecedented six-week campaign in ruling Fidesz strongholds in the countryside, Magyar has summoned his supporters for a rally in Budapest on June 8 in what he hopes will be the largest political demonstration in the country’s history. In April, a quarter of a million people attended the rally where he announced the launch of his new party.

There is clearly a hype about the former Fidesz insider and his TISZA party – named after a river in Hungary – but this will be the first real test whether voters are buying it.

Orban, 61, must have been expecting a comfortable ride in these elections before the emergence of the 43-year-old former Fidesz cadre. Polls still show Fidesz holding a comfortable lead just days before the June 9th election, but any vote below 45% would be seen as a defeat in a political system that has been gerrymandered over the past 14 years to benefit the ruling party. Freedom House no longer classifies Hungary as a full democracy but as a “hybrid regime” and election monitors routinely report that elections are free but not fair.

To further reduce the chances of the opposition after their disastrous defeat in the spring 2022 general elections, Orban brought forward the local government elections to June 9, giving voters a bewildering array of five ballots in some areas to cast on the same day. In many areas the opposition has failed to unite under one candidate this time around. This means the outcome of many mayoral races is still very open, making this one of the most intriguing elections ever.

Magyar’s explosion onto the stagnant Hungarian political scene was unexpected but seems to have been long planned. He launched his political movement weeks after his ex-wife Judit Varga stepped down as justice minister and President Katalin Novak was forced to resign over the pardoning of the former deputy head of a children’s home who had tried to cover up a paedophile scandal there.

The scandal has caused the biggest political upheaval since Orban returned to power in 2010. The scandal damaged Fidesz’s core base significantly and sparked the largest political demonstration organised by civilians.

The country’s surviving independent media have elaborated on the connections between Orban’s network and that of the deputy head of the orphanage but no direct proof that would implicate the prime minister in the pardon has been unearthed, although the majority of Hungarians – and even 10-15% of Fidesz voters – think he is linked.

Magyar has made incendiary comments about the inner workings of the government, accusing Antal Rogan, the minister who leads the prime minister's office and oversees the country’s intelligence services, of running a centralised propaganda machine.

Magyar had previously served as a diplomat in Brussels and held various jobs at state-owned entities such as the Student Loan Centre, or MBH Bank, which belongs to Lorinc Meszaros, who has become a billionaire since his friend Orban returned to power.

With more than 15 years of work experience behind him in the ranks of the ruling party, many political observers expected Magyar to have enough insider information to drop the 'atomic bomb' on his old party – a term coined by the press to describe the fallout when former Fidesz treasurer Lajos Simicska turned on Orban in February 2015.

Magyar did reveal the mafia-type working of the regime in March when he published a two-minute recording of a private conversation with his then wife, in which Varga, taped secretly, detailed alleged attempts by government officials, including Rogan, to tamper with evidence in a high-profile corruption case involving the bailiff association and Varga’s subordinate, onetime state secretary Pal Volner.

The day before Magyar testified at the prosecutor’s office, he told local media that Varga reportedly told him in early 2023 before their divorce that "this is a mafia government that you can't get out of". This bit was not recorded in the conversation he had taped secretly.

However, these revelations do not appear to have had much impact on Hungarian voters, who seem to have largely discounted the regime’s corruption as either obvious or as a price worth paying for stability and security.

Orban’s vast propaganda machine has also been wheeled out to attack the former insider. Varga also joined in, making her first appearance after withdrawing from public life.  In an hour-long interview, she accused her husband of physical and verbal abuse. He has also been harassed by the regime's new Sovereignty Office.

The character assassination has been relentless since, but that appears to have made Magyar and his party stronger and his supporters more dedicated than ever.

Appealing to all

So far TISZA appears to have attracted many undecided or disenchanted voters but it has also lured many from the liberal Momentum party, which is now fighting for political survival.

Magyar is trying to appeal to all voters, from right to left, in a country that is very polarised, though he has positioned himself on the centre-right. Pundits argue that he shares the same view as many Fidesz cadres before Orban’s autocratic turn in 2010.

Magyar has clashed with Hungary’s leading opposition party, the centre-left DK, led by former premier Ferenc Gyurcsany, a highly divisive figure even within the opposition.

Magyar has repeatedly called DK the 'blue orange', and said that Gyurcsany’s continuing involvement in politics is a guarantee for a permanent two-thirds majority for the ruling party. 

He has said he will refuse to co-operate with either Fidesz or DK. "The fact that I am under attack by DK and Fidesz shows that I am on the right track," he claims.

Magyar’s most remarkable feat – which no opposition politician in the past 14 years had done – has been to reach out to voters in Fidesz strongholds in the countryside and in small towns and cities. Magyar was often welcomed by huge crowds even in small towns, which must have rung alarm bells at Fidesz’s HQ.

Magyar began his six-week-long campaign trail in Debrecen, a Fidesz bastion, often referred as the second capital of Hungary for receiving a gargantuan amount of development funding under Orban. Over the last 10 years the city has become an industrial hub, home to CATL's new EV battery factory and BMW’s new EV plant.

He completed his tour, racking up the 199th stop in his campaign., on Wednesday at the western industrial hub of Gyor, home to Audi’s largest engine factory globally.

At rallies, standing on the back of a van, Magyar has slammed rampant corruption in Hungary, and the enrichment of Fidesz cronies and friends, claiming that the country is run by a handful of families, including that of Orban himself.

He has also spoken at great length about the deterioration of Hungary’s health and education sectors, and warned that Hungary is on the verge of a demographic disaster as the number of births reached record lows in 2023 and the monthly data showed the lowest ever birth rates in April.

Despite the HUF40 trillion in EU funding received in the last 14 years, Hungary has become the second-poorest and most corrupt country in the EU.

At the end of each rally, the crowd, waving national flags, chants out aloud, “the Tisza is flooding”, referring to the river by the same name, and, while joining hands, “we will take back our country step by step, and brick by brick”.  

In the last weeks of the campaign, Orban has ramped up his fear mongering, claiming that WWIII has never been closer and that Hungary can only stay out of the Ukraine war if Fidesz achieves its largest electoral victory in Europe on Sunday.

Orban used that tactic successfully against his opponents in the 2022 campaign, when he accused the opposition of wanting to send troops to Ukraine. This time around, Orban’s media and some of his officials have falsely stated that the EU is planning compulsory military conscription and that EU and Nato allies want Hungary to get dragged into the war.

Of the 21 Hungarian seats in the European Parliament, the latest forecast by pollster Zavech Research showed Fidesz would gain 11 mandates, the Tisza Party 7, the three-party leftist coalition (DK–MSZP–Dialogue) 2, and the far right Our Homeland 1 seat, Among decided voters, Fidesz–KDNP was polled at 45%, TISZA at 27% and the DK–MSZP–Dialogue list at 11%.

However, the pollster said mobilisation efforts could still significantly influence the result. In this context, Fidesz has the edge in what is likely to be a higher turnout than five years ago.

The party has splurged on a massive social media campaign, on top of its dominance of the country’s state and private media. Orban also announced on Thursday that in the last days of the campaign some 50,000 activists will reach out to 1mn voters.