BUDAPEST, Mar 15: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his main political opponent, Peter Magyar, each called their supporters to the streets of Hungary’s capital on Sunday for a show of strength before the two men face off in pivotal elections just four weeks away.
The rival rallies in Budapest, expected to draw hundreds of thousands of people in support of Orban’s nationalist Fidesz party and Magyar’s centre-right Tisza, are being viewed as a barometer for which side commands more support as the campaign enters its final month.
In power since 2010 and looking for his fifth consecutive election victory, Orban, 62, faces a more competitive race than at any time in the past two decades as Magyar has shot to prominence and challenged what once seemed to be an unshakeable grip on power by the pro-Russian populist.
As crowds gathered on a bridge over the Danube ahead of the pro-government march that would end with a speech by the prime minister, Orban supporter Aniko Menyhart said his appeal could be summed up in three words: “God, homeland, family.”
“Only this government is able to secure these three things for the future,” she said.
In the days ahead of Sunday’s events, held on the March 15 national holiday commemorating Hungary’s 1848 revolution against the Habsburg Empire, both Orban and Magyar stressed to their followers the importance of attending. Many observers were watching to see which party was able to mobilise more people to its rally, a possible glimpse into how they might perform on April 12.
Magyar’s supporters planned their own march through central Budapest later in the day. Tisza has predicted it will be Hungary’s “biggest ever political event.”
Hungary’s stagnating economy, deteriorating public services and a cost-of-living crisis – compounded by increasingly salient allegations of government corruption – have helped fuel growing dissatisfaction with Orban and his autocratic style.
While the long-serving leader has centred his campaign around what he says are the dangers to Hungary posed by the European Union and neighbouring Ukraine, Magyar, a 44-year-old lawyer and one-time Fidesz insider who broke with the party in 2024, has focused his message on improving conditions for ordinary Hungarians.
Through relentless campaigning across Hungary’s rural countryside, traditionally an Orban stronghold, Magyar has spread the message that he will restore Hungary’s democratic institutions that have eroded under Orban, and steer the country back toward its Western partners and off its drift toward Moscow.
In a video posted to social media early Sunday, Magyar said his party “would like to give back to every Hungarian what the outgoing government has taken away: our belief in our freedom, and the feeling that our homeland truly belongs to every Hungarian.”
Tisza holds a lead over Fidesz in most independent polling, and in a February survey by pollster Median published by the news site HVG, Magyar’s party was at a 20 percentage point advantage among decided voters.
But the outcome of the election remains far from certain as Fidesz has sought to engage its broad support in many rural areas and leverage its control over public broadcasters and a vast web of loyal media outlets to deliver its message.
Magyar, responding to numerous media reports that Russian intelligence services were seeking to use a disinformation campaign to tilt the election in Orban’s favour, has warned his supporters that manipulated recordings could be used to discredit him or his movement.
Orban has relied increasingly on an aggressive anti-Ukraine campaign that alleges Kyiv, the EU and Tisza are part of a conspiracy to oust his government and install one that makes decisions more favourable to Ukraine.
The central message of Orban’s pitch is that a new government would bankrupt Hungary by supporting Ukraine against Russia’s invasion – something he has refused to do – and send Hungary’s youth to their deaths on the front lines. The campaign has been replete with disinformation and relied heavily on pictures and videos generated by artificial intelligence.
Further fueling the tension, Hungary’s government this week said it will declassify a national security report that Orban claims will prove Tisza received illegal financing from Ukraine – a claim Magyar has strongly denied. (AP)
The post Orban, challenger Magyar summon rival rallies in show of strength before Hungary’s April election appeared first on Daily Excelsior.