However, Péter Magyar, who is currently leading a 55-day nationwide tour called “Now or Never”, is trying to avoid Orbán’s trap. Unlike Orbán, he turns his attention to the domestic scene, where price growth and other economic problems can only be attributed to the failures of the previous government.
Instead of defending Brussels or Zelensky, he strikes back on the home front. He points out that the prime minister’s economic failures are the real reason for expensive energy and points out that fuel is cheaper today in neighboring Poland, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria, he reports.
Although many European diplomats are hoping for Magyar’s victory, the leader of the Tisza party is nowhere near as unequivocally pro-European and pro-Ukraine a politician as it might seem. An example is the party’s vote against the mentioned 90 billion loan for Ukraine. Tisza also surprisingly voted to freeze the key trade agreement between the EU and the South American bloc Mercosur.
In many of these votes, the party thus went against its own faction, the European People’s Party (EPP), of which it is a member. This caused a wave of resentment in Brussels – the Tisze group was banned from speaking in plenary sessions or acting as rapporteurs for the next six months.
“Members of the European Parliament for Tisza take note of this decision,” Magyar wrote in response to it on Facebook. “At the same time, we are grateful for the confirmation from Brussels that politicians do not own the Tisza,” he added.
Ukraine will probably not improve
In addition to blocking the loan for Ukraine, Magyar’s presence at the recent Munich Security Conference is also worth mentioning in the Ukraine issue. On it, among other things, he met the German chancellor Friedrich Merz. However, after this meeting, X wrote on the social network that the highest priority of the Tisza party will be the restoration of European money, as Hungary is entitled to it.
“To achieve this, we will immediately introduce strict anti-corruption measures, restore the independence of the judiciary and protect the freedom of the press and higher education. Hungary does not support Ukraine’s accelerated entry into the EU. The future government of Tisza will take a firm stance on illegal migration and will not accept the migration pact. Every effort must be made to reach a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine as soon as possible,” he informed after the meeting.
In addition, he also met with other European leaders, for example Donald Tusk, whose Poland has always been strongly pro-Ukrainian. However, Magyar’s rhetoric towards Ukraine is clear – it is not a priority.
Compromising video Hungarian
However, what attracted the attention of a much wider range of people than just the domestic scene is the level of campaigning in pre-election Hungary. According to many observers, it has reached the bottom. Péter Magyar only recently pointed out on the social network that the government is preparing to publish a compromising video, the purpose of which is to publish a secretly recorded sex video of Péter Magyar.
This bizarre scandal started with the appearance of a mysterious website – allegedly registered to Tisza party vice-chairman Márko Radnai, who denied it. The page contained only a black and white photo of a strewn bed and the inscription “coming soon”.
Magyar immediately escalated the situation with a surprising preemptive move. In a six-minute video, which has already been seen by millions of people on Facebook, he openly admitted that the photo captures the apartment in which he had intimate intercourse with his ex-partner Evelin Vogelová in August 2024, who had any part in the secret recording. “Yes, I’m a 45-year-old man and I have a sex life,” he declared.
Tomorrow will be the second anniversary of my Partizán interview.
Obviously, this is also a symbolic day for Fidesz, because this is when their power, which was believed to be unshakable, cracked.
They are getting ready for it. Not the way normal people would, say confronting and apologizing, but rather…— Péter Magyar (Don’t be afraid) (@magyarpeterMP)
Any video released will most likely be recorded by the secret services and manipulated, he said. He also admitted there was alcohol and drug-like substances at the party, but denied consuming them.
Meanwhile, Fidesz distanced itself from the recording, but some of its politicians did not hesitate to react anyway. State Secretary for Health Péter Takács, for example, declared that if he saw cocaine on the table, he would immediately call the police, and the party’s communications director, Tamás Menczer, called Magyar a liar. Although they haven’t released the video itself (yet).
Artificial intelligence in the streets of Budapest
In Hungary, candidates do not even hesitate to use artificial intelligence to create fake images or videos. Social networks have been massively flooded with misinformation and artificially created videos that try to manipulate the emotions of voters.
For example, the streets of Budapest and the social networks of Fidesz were flooded with generated photos of Magyar, in which he is secretly conspiring with the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
A pro-government video created by artificial intelligence, in which a Hungarian girl cries for her father, who was shot, also had a great impact. This video further builds on Fidesz’s rhetoric that a change of government will mean dragging Hungary into war.
A page close to the left-wing Democratic Coalition countered with another AI video where a Hungarian living abroad laughingly claims he will vote for Fidesz because he doesn’t live there and doesn’t care what happens to the country.
Survey War
With the election date approaching, Hungary also faces significant dispersion in pre-election polls, which definitely does not add confidence to the institutions. The differences are so massive that they resemble surveys from two different states.
While independent agencies favor the Tisza party, those with links to the government see a clear winner in Fidesz. Agency 21 Research Center, for example, that in a survey conducted between January 28 and February 2, among decided voters, Tisza leads Fidesz by up to 16 percentage points. The pro-government Nézőpont Institute, on the other hand, claims that Fidesz has 46 percent and Tisza 40 percent, while the Hungarian Social Research Institute gives Fidesz up to 51 percent.
According to the research agency Závecz Research, 49 percent of voters would support Tisza, compared to 39 percent for Fidesz, which represents a significant lead. The IDEA Institute measured that Tisza has an eight-point lead among the general population and a ten-point lead among decided voters.
This discrepancy lies in the methodology, the portal informs. The Nézőpont Institute, for example, assigns “undecided” voters showing sympathy for the government directly to Fidesz’s preferences. However, international betting markets have a different view. Polymarket, for example, credits Magyar with nearly 60 percent of the profit, Orbán with just under forty percent.
However, it is important not to forget the complex Hungarian electoral system. It combines single-mandate constituencies and a proportional system, while according to experts, it is set up to give Fidesz a bonus of two to three percentage points to the overall result. If we add hundreds of thousands of votes from Hungarians abroad and the huge mobilization power of the ruling party in the last days of the campaign, Tisza would need to win by three to five percentage points at the national level just to get a parliamentary majority.
The denouement of this drama will come on April 12. It remains to be seen whether Orbán’s narrative of defense against war, or Magyar’s promises to end corruption, has more power.
