Can a person who declares himself to be left-wing be happy about ? Or, formulated another way, can a person who declares himself to be left-wing be happy about ? Perhaps the answer is not simple and is steeped in endless contradictions, but perhaps it would be advisable to go to the Hungarian left to understand their satisfaction; a left that, although it may surprise more than one, decided not to present itself.
Imre Komjáthi is president of the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP), heir to the communist Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party (MSZMP) that governed Hungary in the middle of the Cold War, between 1956 and 1989. Komjáthi, a deputy in the last legislature, his party’s decision not to present candidates in these last elections. Why stay out and allow the only presence of right-wing and extreme-right deputies in Parliament? “Because the change of government is the priority,” said the president of the Hungarian Social Democrats. For that reason, The party asked its voters to bet on “the candidate most likely to achieve a change of government”although that meant the victory of a politician like Magyar, a former colleague of Orban himself.
This is why, in reality, the socialists did not obtain any deputies in the new Hungarian Parliament, although the spokesperson of the Popular Party in Congress, Ester Muñoz, has let it slip that the Hungarians have decided to throw them out.. They were the ones who stepped aside, just like the greens of Diálogo and LMP. Imre Komjáthi went so far as to understand Péter Magyar’s party, Tisza, as a kind of “coalition of hope.” “Many people, regardless of their political affiliation, support him in the hope of a change of government,” continued the president of the socialists.
The electoral reform carried out by Orban had a lot to do with this complex decision, which In these years it changed the rules of the game so that the parties with the most votes, especially theirs, would always benefit.
Does this mean that Komjáthi and his people have betrayed the ideology that defines them, their very reason for being as a party? There are those who see it that way, but not them. Once the result was known, the social democratic party celebrated that its support and that of the left was key. “This change would not have been possible without all the parties and representatives who asked their supporters to support the candidates of the Tisza Party, so that Hungary decided once and for all to overthrow the far-right regime,” they congratulated themselves before claiming that “now the real work begins.”
“All Hungarians who are thinking about rebuilding the left can count on us in the coming years. Our task now is to introduce a new electoral system, restore the rule of law, build a more just and social country, and return the role of local self-determination to the sphere of local government. Therefore, in the MSZP we continue to work. We count on everyone to rebuild the left, just as everyone can count on us, the only responsible left party in Hungary. The regime change has begun. And the work continues“, .
The Momentum movement, an organization that was born in 2015 with the aim of escaping the left-right dilemma, made the same determination as the socialists. Its assembly approved in 2025 not to run in the 2026 elections to also favor a “regime change.” “Over the next 10 months, Momentum will use all its resources to ensure that the change of government in Hungary is implemented and to establish the guarantees of regime change and democratic transition, through the broadest possible social consultation,” they explained in a statement. The proposal came from one of its founders, András Fekete-Gyor.
“In recent months, I have noticed more and more that Momentum has deviated from the direction we set out to do when we were founded. More and more people were concerned exclusively with the survival of the party, and fewer were asking the fundamental questions: what will happen to Hungary? What will happen with the change of regime? What will happen to the voters if we selfishly cling to our positions? According to the logic of a traditional party, it is understandable to wonder what will happen to the party. But Momentum never wanted to be a traditional party. For us, the question was never what will happen to us, but what will happen to Hungary“, to specify his position.
Towards the end of his clarification, the founder of Momentum asked a question that, without a doubt, generates and will generate some discomfort in many areas of the left: “Is it worth sacrificing another four years just for a few politicians to retain their privileged positions in the National Assembly?”.
