Peter Magyar has emerged as a credible challenger to Hungary's longest-serving Prime Minister Viktor Orban and currently is even polling ahead of the ruling Fidesz party, an extraordinary achievement. 

The 43-year-old political newcomer now faces the challenging task of building up his Tisza Party from a grassroots movement in a society dominated by the ruling party and with a heavily skewed media environment. His party is still seen as a "one-man show" with limited infrastructure. 

This week Magyar unveiled some aspects of his economic reform agenda and announced the start of a national consultation, while Fidesz launched a propaganda campaign against him based on illegal audio recordings capturing him using offensive language about the media and his followers. 

Magyar accused Fidesz of using the recordings to divert public attention from Hungary's economic problems, notably its cost of living crisis. He alleged the recordings were manipulated and illegally obtained, possibly through wiretapping. He showed a pen to reporters which could be used to transmit messages by connecting to a wifi network.

Last weekend Magyar held an extraordinary press briefing claiming that Fidesz was about to launch an online site with wiretapped conversations, secret recordings and AI-generated false claims. He presented evidence that his former partner Evelin Vogel had made secret audio recordings and had allegedly demanded HUF30mn (€74,000) to keep silent.

Magyar claims Vogel receives €5,000 per month from Fidesz and resides in a central Budapest flat owned by a businessman close to Antal Rogan, head of Orban's cabinet office and overseer of Hungary's intelligence services.

According to Magyar, the ruling party wanted to use the 11-hour-long recordings taped by his ex-girlfriend ahead of the elections but decided to release them now as they are in “panic mode”because of Tisza's poll lead. Last week, his ex-wife, former justice minister Judit Varga, acknowledged that she is working Tigra Ltd, a company owned by the same businessman.

Stepping into the political arena

Magyar burst into the political limelight in mid-February  after Varga resigned as justice minister and President Katalin Novak stepped down following public outrage over the presidential pardon of a former deputy head of a children’s home, who had been implicated in covering up a long-running paedophile scandal at the home. 

The scandal became the the largest political crisis for Orban since his re-election in 2010, and undermined the foundations of his regime’s identity. Orban has positioned himself as a protector of Christian values by fighting cultural wars against Western LGBT propaganda. The controversial anti-gay legislation passed in 2021 conflated homosexuality with paedophilia, and was used in the 2022 election campaign against political opponents as part of a referendum on "child protection".

Just a month after the scandal broke, Magyar officially made his political debut on the March 15 national holiday, drawing tens of thousands of people to a demonstration where he announced the launch of the Respect and Freedom Party (Tisza), named after the country’s second-largest river.

Building on the momentum, three weeks later he organised the largest mass demonstration since the end of the communist regime, drawing an estimated 250,000 people to Kossuth Square, in front of parliament.

In a fiery speech, Magyar made no secret that his goal was to unseat Orban.

"Hungary is facing its biggest legal, political, moral and economic crisis of the last 30 years, and people feel they have had enough," Magyar told local media after the rally. He tried to downplay his role in the political upheaval created by his entering politics by saying: "I may be the spark that started the fire."

Conservative values

Magyar's success is rooted in his conservative background compared to other opponents over Orban over the years. Many political analysts suggest this could serve as a shield against Fidesz's smear tactics, which often revolve around narratives that portray opponents as part of an alleged international liberal-left conspiracy against the nation.

Nevertheless, Magyar is still often labelled by Orban's propaganda outlets as the "leader of the left", a depiction that is entirely out of touch with reality as Magyar comes from a well connected middle-class, conservative legal family.

Before retiring, his mother was the secretary general of Hungary’s highest court (Kuria), and deputy president of the National Judicial Council (OBT). His grandfather was a popular television personality in the 1980s covering law cases, and his godfather, the sister of his grandmother, was none other than Ferenc Madl, who served in the first conservative, centre-right government after 1989 and was head of state between 2000 and 2005. Magyar followed in the footsteps of his parents and grandfather and graduated in law in 2004.

Despite his deep-rooted conservative values and nationalist rhetoric, Magyar has successfully attracted liberal and left-leaning supporters and managed to mobilise a large group of undecided voters to his cause.

After four consecutive supermajority victories by Fidesz, and the opposition's inability to halt the Orban's hollowing out of Hungarian democracy, many voters have grown disillusioned with the entire political system. Doubts intensified about whether the ruling radical rightwing party could ever be ousted through elections, given its manipulation of electoral laws, gerrymandered constituencies and access to the vast resources of the state, quasi-state bodies and friendly oligarchs.

One of Magyar's greatest achievements was his ability to inspire people to overcome political apathy by positioning himself as a dynamic alternative, unburdened by the ineffectiveness often associated with the existing opposition.

Through strategic social media campaigning, he successfully tapped into the widespread frustrations of voters, in messages that particularly resonated with young, urban voters who felt disconnected from the traditional political narratives.

Magyar has also successfully taken over the main narrative from Fidesz thanks to his social media savvy tactics, and he has been able to generate public debate on topics such as corruption, the squandering of EU funds, mismanagement and the failure of the Hungarian state in basic services, such as health, education and transport.

Building up a campaign from scratch

Magyar, a former diplomat at the EU and party cadre, quit Fidesz as, according to his own words, he had grown disillusioned with the regime on account of its corruption, the vast wealth accumulated by cronies and the concentrated power of a few of Orban’s ministers. In his speeches, he highlighted Hungary’s failure to converge with the EU despite the massive EU transfers.

Hungary has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of EU funds per capita of the countries that have joined the block since 2004, and the total amount of development money was comparable in scale to the Marshall Plan over the past two decades, according to Magyar.

He levelled criticism against powerful ministers within the cabinet, such as Rogan, and said he does not want to live in a country where a handful of oligarchs control much of the wealth of the country, name checking Orban’s son-in-law, Istvan Tiborcz.

Magyar worked relentlessly in this summer's European election campaign, touring the countryside, the strong base of Fidesz, visiting more than 200 cities and towns in eight weeks. Often he would stand on the back of a truck and deliver passionate speeches with the message that Orban’s authoritarian rule could be overturned and that Hungary’s future lies in breaking free from the current regime’s grip. He positioned himself as a genuine alternative to the status quo, which seemed to resonate with the crowd.

At the June EP election, which coincided with local government elections, Magyar’s novel political formation received 1.25mn votes, more than all other opposition parties combined. The party got 30% of the popular vote, translating into seven mandates in the EP and 10 seats in the Budapest Assembly, making it the holder of the balance of power.

He called the election results a political landslide. "Lies clashed with truth, East confronted with West, and corruption with the promise of clean public life", he argued.

Turning to old techniques

Magyar draws heavily on techniques and themes used by Fidesz in the early 2000s, Adam Tompos, a journalist at independent conservative weekly Magyar Hang, told bne IntelliNews. His weekly publication is printed in Slovakia, as many local printers are reluctant to print it due to fears of reprisals from the government, which illustrates the growing financial and political pressure on independent media outlets in Hungary.

Magyar is also tapping into nostalgia for a time when Fidesz was seen as a force for change rather than the establishment itself, and he blends grassroots mobilisation with populist rhetoric, Tompos adds.

The rallies resemble the gathering of the ruling party, with a nationalistic touch. Magyar vowed to take back national symbols appropriated by Fidesz over the years, such as the use of flags at political demonstrations. 

The launch of Tisza's groups also bears striking similarities to the civic circles in the 2000s, which served as a tool for Fidesz to organise itself in small settlements while in opposition. At this week's press conference, Magyar said 1,000 such civic circles were operating in the country, with 25-40 members each.

This aligns with the strategy of strengthening party branches in rural areas, creating a pool of potential candidates, and laying the groundwork for a network of activists.

Even as Magyar is drawing heavily on familiar elements of Fidesz’s early playbook, he could struggle to overcome the deep-rooted dominance of Fidesz in Hungarian politics. This has posed an existential challenge for opposition forces in the past and will be key to success in 2026. 

After 14 years in power, Fidesz has built a network that extends into nearly every corner of Hungarian society, analysts said. By contrast, critics of Magyar point to the limited infrastructure of the Tisza Party.

Tompos notes that there has been only a handful of high-profile experts speaking to the media, and the party faces significant hurdles in setting up local chapters and fielding 106 candidates at individual constituencies.

At the October 23 rally, Magyar revealed plans to begin recruiting candidates and forming working groups dedicated to drafting an election programme, which would later serve as the foundation for a government programme.  Magyar estimated that at least 10,000 people would be needed from all walks of life in the world after Orban.

Magyar also faces the dilemma of whether to prioritize fresh faces or welcome individuals defecting from Fidesz or other opposition parties.

While there is potential to win over local officials, entrepreneurs, and others who have become disenchanted with the ruling party, it is unlikely that defections will come at a higher level, says Szabolc Dull, the former editor-in-chief of Index.hu and later Telex.hu, who now runs a blog. Instead, Magyar’s strategy might rely on quietly attracting public figures without overt fanfare, leveraging their local influence to bolster the Tisza Party’s presence, especially in rural areas.

According to Dull,  Magyar will only stand a chance of winning the election if can build up an organisation and a programme that convinces voters he is capable of leading the country.

Magyar also announced the launch of a public consultation initiative called "The Voice of Hungarians", which also bears a resemblance to the national consultation surveys of Fidesz, at least on paper. Magyar said the consultation seeks citizen input on important topics such as healthcare, transport and child protection, without offering direct answers such as those used by Fidesz in its surveys, which are widely regarded as state-financed communication tools and help create a database of voters.

Magyar stressed that no personal data would be stored by the Tisza Party. The results of the survey will be known in January and will serve as a guide for the party's priorities in the election campaign, he added.

Economic agenda

Magyar has broadly touched on some of his policy agenda, which seeks to address the cost of living crisis in Hungary. This includes reducing VAT for basic food staples and lowering the levy on fruits and vegetables to 5%, with further reductions on basic healthy food items.

He pledged to uphold the 13th-month pension relaunched by the Orban government before the 2022 elections and eliminate pensions below the subsistence minimum. A quarter of pensioners, around 900,000, live in poverty, according to Magyar, compared with 5% in 2010.

To ease the financial burdens on families, Magyar proposed income tax exemptions for mothers with three or more children and single parents, alongside expanded family support programmes.

In his pre-election campaign tours, Magyar denounced the current agricultural policy that benefits oligarchs through hefty land-based EU subsidies, while family businesses suffer. In his speeches, he often referred to the success story of Polish agriculture.

Magyar also seeks to address social issues neglected by the Orban government, promising to overhaul child protection services plagued by staff shortages and bureaucratic delays.

Magyar also pledged to join the European Public Prosecutor's Office and to bring home frozen EU funds.

At the press conference, Magyar said he wants Hungarians to vote for him because of his vision for Hungary and not as a protest against the incumbent.

Analysts observed that the state of the economy will be crucial in the 2026 contest.

The Hungarian economy has contracted in six of the last nine quarters and economic forecasts of the government since 2022 have repeatedly fallen short of targets. Additionally, food inflation has soared by 60% since 2021, the highest level in the EU, cutting the living standards of low-income households. This has changed the public mood considerably.

Recent polls show a marked deterioration in the ratio of people who said Hungary was headed in the right direction, and the same polls showed that Magyar was rated as the most popular politician, some 10pp ahead of Orban.

The ruling party has already changed its communication narrative and begun projecting an optimistic outlook for 2025. The launch of its new economic action scheme targets injecting billions of forints into the economy to stimulate growth. 

Public perception of how this programme affects their daily lives will be a decisive factor in the 2026 campaign, potentially shaping whether Hungary’s political newcomer can defy expectations and usher in a new era for the country.