Peter Magyar is reinvigorating Hungary’s struggling opposition

VIKTOR ORBAN, Hungary’s right-wing populist prime minister, spent the first week of July on what he called a “peace mission” to Kyiv, Moscow, Beijing and Washington, angering the rest of the EU by undercutting its diplomacy. Back at home, a 43-year-old lawyer named Peter Magyar was trying to poach Mr Orban’s voters. Mr Magyar entered politics early this year by revealing evidence (from conversations with his ex-wife, Mr Orban’s former justice minister) of alleged high-level corruption. In April he launched a new political party, Tisza. On June 9th the upstarts won an extraordinary 30% of the vote in the country’s European Parliament election; Mr Orban’s long-ruling Fidesz party took 45%.

Now Mr Magyar is trying to build his party into a contender for parliamentary elections due in 2026. In a YouTube broadcast to supporters on July 21st, he said the party would need “well over 2m” voters—the number Fidesz won in the European election. Tisza has started building a nationwide party infrastructure, and its seven MEPs have joined the centre-right European Peoples’ Party group.

What comes next will depend on Mr Magyar’s ability to build his party. His supporters come mainly from the old, largely ineffectual opposition. He will need to win over Fidesz voters who are weary of the party’s corruption and nepotism but cling to the devil they know. Mr Magyar has reinvigorated a Hungarian political landscape long sunk in Fidesz-dominated torpor.

Take singing at rallies, for example. Hungary’s socialists and liberals mumble through the national anthem; Fidesz rallies sound like football-stadium crowds in full throat. Mr Magyar’s impressive election campaign, in which he visited 200 towns and villages in a 45-day whirlwind tour broadcast live on Facebook, upended this. After each rally he stood with the crowd to belt out a rousing version of Tavaszi szel vizet araszt, a folk song of the Csangos, a small Hungarian ethnic group in Romania. (“Who should I choose now, my flower, my flower? You choose me, and I choose you”—not a bad political anthem.)

Unlike previous newcomers, Mr Magyar has “made it clear that he will not co-operate with the existing opposition parties”, says Robert Laszlo of Political Capital, a Hungarian think-tank. “This dynamic proved very attractive for disillusioned voters.” Mr Orban’s campaign theme was that other parties would somehow involve Hungary in the war in Ukraine, a message that won him a resounding victory in the general election in 2022.

Mr Orban has held power since 2010. He has altered the constitution, taken over the courts and media, changed the electoral system and extended control over banks and the economy. Mr Magyar refers to Fidesz as Mr Orban’s “family business”. He should know: through Judit Varga, his ex-wife and Mr Orban’s justice minister until 2023, Mr Magyar understands the transactions of the complex business empire that keeps Fidesz afloat, and knows the nicknames its players use for secrecy. His speeches are filled with attacks on corruption among Mr Orban’s closest associates.

Mr Magyar is sharp-witted and can be hot-tempered. He stormed out of an interview with a television channel the day after the election. An incident in a nightclub (engineered, he claims, by Fidesz “agents”) led to accusations of drunkenness and inappropriate behaviour towards young women. What he misses most from his previous life, he told your correspondent in an interview, is his three young sons, all keen footballers. When his ex-wife was a politician he had the quality time with them few dads enjoy.

Now the roles are reversed. Since she quit politics in February (for helping pardon a man who protected a paedophile), Ms Varga has retrained as a carpenter. Mr Magyar, for his part, fancies himself a bricklayer: at rallies, he leads a chant promising to rebuild Hungary’s system of checks and balances “brick by brick”. Is it tempting, your correspondent asked him, to use instead the power Mr Orban accumulated for his own ends, if he wins? Absolutely not, he replied: “We will change everything, the whole power factory.” ■

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