Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, on Nov. 7, looked confident.
Budapest was hosting the European Political Community gathering, with Orban hugging it out with the continent's leaders whose standing at home leaves them little leeway to challenge the Russian-friendly prime minister.
Orban's standing at home, practically unchallenged since 2010, has for quite some time allowed the prime minister to dictate his will to Brussels, Paris, and Berlin, with mixed success.
Yet, Orban's grip on Hungary looks weaker than ever, with a formidable challenger, Peter Magyar, set to pose a threat come election time in April 2026.
An October poll by 21 Kutatóközpont and a November one by Median show that the governing Fidesz party is neck and neck with the opposition Tisza party, led by a previously unknown former government loyalist, Magyar, now a member of the European Parliament.
The 21 Kutatóközpont poll shows Tisza leading by 2%, and the one by Median gives the opposition a 7% advantage, without an outright majority, however.
Despite Orban's unopposed rule, elections in the country are held with opposition parties participating, while those passing the 5% threshold receive money from the state budget.
Martin Fornusek
Due to government resources benefiting the incumbent party, and the media landscape controlled by the state, an uneven playing field had been benefiting Orban, the country's longest-serving prime minister.
Hungary's opposition parties have suffered their fourth defeat in a row in 2022, but did not draw consequences or made structural changes on how they conduct politics, which fueled the mounting dissatisfaction of anti-government voters with them, Peter Stumpf, assistant research fellow at the University of Szeged, told the Kyiv independent.
Meanwhile, a chain of scandals, from the stagnating Hungarian economy to a presidential pardon of a man convicted of covering up child molestation in a specialized institution, breached the popular trust in the Orban-led government.
The popular dissatisfaction with both the government and opposition paved the way for Magyar, a man unknown to the general public before a series of Facebook posts earlier this year.
"Widespread dissatisfaction against the opposition parties and a largely stagnating economy since 2022 had no consequences until now for lack of alternatives on the supply side of politics. Then Magyar exploded onto the scene and harnessed its buoyancy," Stumpf said.
Whether the popularity wave spurred by popular dissatisfaction remains, is to be seen.
Seizing the opportunity
For years, Peter Magyar, the former husband of now-former Justice Minister Judit Varga, took various non-public roles under the Fidesz-led government.
Yet, Magyar was able to seize the moment when the government-appointed President Katalin Novak pardoned a man convicted of covering up the fact that the director of the Bicske children's home was molesting children at the institution.
Novak and Varga subsequently resigned following a series of protests.
Magyar resigned from his post and took his anger with authorities to Facebook.
In his first interview following the scandal, which gained 2.6 million views on YouTube, Magyar also discussed the inner workings of Orban's propaganda machine and reinforced existing rumors about widespread corruption and the informal power of certain actors within the regime.
In the interview, he also defended his ex-wife.
"I am certain that if there is no pardon case, we would not know who he is today," said Zoltan Novak, a political analyst at the Centre for Fair Political Analyses.
The country's ongoing economic stagnation was the second key to Magyar's rapid rise.
Since the start of Russia's all-out war against Ukraine, the Hungarian economy has been enduring a period of stagnation that has yet to be resolved.
The country's inflation hit 17% in 2023, the highest in the EU, while the economy had contracted by nearly one percent.
While the economy is set to rebound in 2024, with an International Monetary Fund-projected GDP growth rate of over 1.5% and an inflation rate of over 3%, popular support for the country's unmovable prime minister has dropped.
"There is an expectation on the side of opposition voters that there will be one person who will come, unite the anti-government voters and defeat Viktor Orban," Stumpf said. "Magyar accepted and took up this messianic character."
Stellar launch
Shortly after his debut interview in February, Magyar's popularity soared. The Tisza party, which he joined soon after, received 30% during the European Parliament elections in June.
Apart from the subsequent scandals, his success was attributable to his ability to turn Fidesz's attacks to his own advantage.
"After his debut, he was all over the media's agenda, dominating headlines for weeks. Regardless of whether it was good or bad coverage, Magyar professionally exploited this, moving up and reaching more people with his messages," Stumpf said.
Following June's success, Magyar faces the task of building up a party while simultaneously campaigning for the 2026 elections.
"For the time being, there is no party organization, there is a leader, and a whole party has to be built under him, which is no small task," Novak said.
One such task is finding candidates to run for the 106 single-member constituencies. Magyar said he plans to do it through a transparent casting of applicants, vowing to bar applicants with a history in politics.
"The more polarized a society is, the more risky it is for amateurs to enter politics," Novak said. "On the other hand, it is a good initiative because it brings in fresh faces. But there are tremendous risks, politics is a profession for a reason."
"Tisza has come up with some very innovative and interesting solutions, trying to turn party recruitment and construction into a kind of reality show," Novak said.
"This will bring in some thrill and excitement, helping to attract younger voter's attention."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tested such a move during the 2019 parliamentary campaign. The newly elected president said he would pave the way for "fresh faces" to take on the responsibility. The move sparked controversy, as many people unfit for office or with ties to tainted businessmen were elected into office under Zelensky's party banner.
Over a dozen lawmakers were kicked out of the party as a result.
Meanwhile, the recent pollsters became a wakeup call for Fidesz which now will be forced to amend its stance on a number of key issues, Novak said.
"Dominant parties, such as the Fidesz, either 'soften' or 'toughen' up to challenges. Either they choose less polarizing rhetoric to look more inclusive or dig cleavages deeper to prevent the crossing of their voters to the opposite camp," Novak said.
According to him, there are signs of both softening and toughening at the moment, exemplified by Orban's willingness to answer journalists' questions in recent weeks but also by his extremely polarizing speech on the occasion of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 on Oct. 23. The coexistence of the two shows that no choice has yet been made inside the party.
Stumpf said Fidesz has a double problem to solve before 2026 — first, quickly find a solution to fix the state of the economy or find a way to frame it as something outside their circle of competence and responsibility; second, they will have to work out a different method to halt Magyar's rise.
"There doesn't seem to be a big policy push to tackle the crisis… there is no clear message on what will happen to the economy," he said.
Both analysts found it important to note that in regimes dominated by a single party, such as Orban's, the end usually results from an internal rift.
Many believe Magyar can be up for the task.
James Beardsworth
