Orbán and challenger Magyar summon rival rallies in show of strength before Hungary’s April election
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his main political rival Péter Magyar called his supporters to the streets of the Hungarian capital on Sunday in a show of force before they face off in crucial elections just four weeks away.
Rival rallies in Budapest, expected to draw hundreds of thousands of people backing Orbán’s nationalist Fidesz party and Magyar’s centre-right Tisza, are seen as a barometer of the side’s greater support as it enters the final month of the campaign.
Orbán, 62, who has been in power since 2010 and is poised for a fifth consecutive election victory, faces a more competitive race than at any time in the past two decades as Magyar emerges and challenges the once-seemingly unshakeable grip of power by pro-Russian populists.
As crowds gathered on a bridge over the Danube ahead of a pro-government march that will culminate with the Prime Minister’s speech, Orbán supporter Anikó Menyhárt said his call could be summed up in three words: “God, homeland, family.”
“Only this government can secure these three things for the future,” he said.
In the days before Sunday’s events, held on the March 15 national holiday commemorating Hungary’s 1848 revolution against the Habsburg Empire, both Orbán and Magyar stressed the importance of joining their followers. Many observers were watching to see which party could mobilize more people to its rally; This gave a possible insight into the party’s performance on April 12.
Magyar’s supporters planned their own march towards the center of Budapest later in the day. Tisza predicted that this would be Hungary’s “biggest political event ever”.
Hungary’s stagnating economy, deteriorating public services and cost-of-living crisis (combined with increasingly prominent allegations of government corruption) have helped fuel growing discontent with Orbán and his autocratic style.
While the long-serving leader focused his campaign around the dangers posed to Hungary by the European Union and neighboring Ukraine, the 44-year-old lawyer and Magyar, who was once in Fidesz and left the party in 2024, focused his message on improving conditions for ordinary Hungarians.
Magyar has campaigned relentlessly in Hungary’s rural countryside, traditionally Orbán’s stronghold, spreading the message that Hungary would restore its democratic institutions, eroded under Orbán, and steer the country towards its Western partners and save it from drifting towards Moscow.
In a video posted on social media early Sunday, Magyar said his party “wants to give back to every Hungarian what the outgoing government took away: our belief in our freedom and the feeling that our homeland truly belongs to every Hungarian.”
Tisza leads Fidesz in most independent polls, and Magyar’s party has a 20 percentage point advantage among committed voters in a February poll by pollster Medián published by news site HVG.
But the outcome of the election is far from certain, as Fidesz seeks to build broad support in many rural areas and strengthen its control over a vast network of public broadcasters and loyalist media outlets to deliver its message.
Responding to multiple media reports that Russian intelligence services were trying to use a disinformation campaign to sway the election in favor of Orbán, Magyar warned his supporters that manipulated records could be used to discredit him or his movement.
Orbán has increasingly relied on an aggressive anti-Ukrainian campaign that claims Kiev, the EU and Tisza are part of a conspiracy to overthrow his government and install one whose decisions will favor Ukraine.
The main message of Orbán’s speech was that the new government would bankrupt Hungary by supporting Ukraine against Russian invasion (which he refused to do) and send Hungary’s youth to die on the front lines. The campaign was full of disinformation and relied heavily on AI-generated images and videos.
Further exacerbating tensions, the Hungarian government this week announced it would declassify a national security report that Orbán claimed would prove Tisza received illegal funding from Ukraine; Magyar vehemently denied this claim.
