Peter Magyar, a 43-year-old former government insider, spoke to a cheering crowd of tens of thousands of supporters in Budapest on Saturday — the eve of EU and municipal elections in which he has emerged as nationalist Prime Minister ‘s most .
Though Orban and his Fidesz party — in power since 2010 — look likely to take between 44% and 49% of the vote, Magyar’s Tisza movement is tipped to take between 23-29%.
A former Foreign Ministry employee in the prime minister’s Brussels office, Magyar left Fidesz over the corruption and state propaganda he said he witnessed from inside Orban’s political machine.
Magyar’s rise amid Orban government’s child-abuse scandal
A relative unknown until recently, Magyar shot onto the scene in the wake of a and led to the .
Speaking to supporters Saturday, Magyar attacked the Orban “system” of illiberal democracy and self-preservation.
As flags reading “Wake Up Hungary” and “We Are the Masters of Our Future” waved in the crowd, Magyar bellowed: “Together we can save Hungary… We are here and we are ready to change our destiny… the fate that thieving, oppressive power wants to impose on us. Viktor Orban has been keeping his own people in fear.”
Orban: strongman at home with no bloc in Brussels
The longest-serving leader in the EU, Orban has shown himself to be a and a thorn in Brussels’ side.
Last week, he too, spoke to a massive crowd, though the message was decidedly different, with the longtime leader claiming to be alone in “fighting for peace” in Ukraine — he has as well as accusing the EU and NATO of seeking to drag Hungary into the war.
Orban, an international right-wing darling, has sought to frame Sunday’s EU vote as a referendum on Ukraine and has at the polls.
Orban has floated the idea of joining Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s European Conservatives and Reformists Party in Brussels.
Magyar has said Tisza members would join the European People’s Party (EPP), which parted ways with Orban and Fidesz in 2021 over Budapest’s severe democratic backsliding.
Nearly 8 million Hungarian voters are expected to cast ballots on Sunday.
js/sms (AFP, Reuters)
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