The Hungarian parliamentary elections scheduled for April 2026 could be a fateful moment not only for Hungary, which V. Orban has been leading for over fifteen years, but also for him personally. His power, authority and the system that he had built for himself for so long have faltered and are on the verge of collapse. Despite total control over the media, propaganda and administrative resources, the unprecedented scale of corruption, numerous scandals and exposure of the financial frauds of his associates have done their job.
As a result of V. Orban’s failed policy, an unspoken social contract was destroyed in Hungary, according to which the public turned a blind eye to corruption in exchange for stability. The economic situation and the well-being of the population began to deteriorate rapidly due to the ineffective and unprofessional policy of his government. Billions of euros that could have been directed to the social sphere and for the benefit of the people “settled in the pockets” of people close to V. Orban.
Systemic corruption in Hungary has ceased to be a political backdrop and has become the main factor in the decline in V. Orban’s ratings and the growth of support for his main opponent P. Magyar. As a result, popular support for the Hungarian prime minister has fallen even among his former supporters. According to various sociological surveys, P. Magyar’s opposition party “Tisa” is ahead of the pro-government “Fidesz”.
P. Magyar’s peculiarity is that he comes from the power system and knows its specifics well from the inside. But most importantly, he understands perfectly who Viktor Orban is and how to fight him. V. Orban’s headquarters understand this and therefore will not abandon attempts to discredit him. P. Magyar decided to build his campaign not on unfounded accusations and demagogy, as is typical of Fidesz supporters, but on exposing abuses and corruption in Orban’s entourage.
The trigger for the start of his opposition activities should be considered the scandal with the pardon in the case of sexual violence against children and the resignation of the former Minister of Justice Judith Varga (Magyar’s ex-wife). In April 2023, on the eve of the Pope’s visit, Hungarian President Katalin Novak pardoned the deputy director of an orphanage who had concealed the crimes of a pedophile. The publication of this information occurred almost a year later in February 2024 and caused a great resonance and protests. P. Magyar then publicly declared for the first time the systemic and deep degradation of Hungarian justice.
Against the background of these events, P. Magyar’s transition to the opposition actually took place. He resigned from all his public positions and began giving interviews to independent Hungarian media outlets, criticizing V. Orbán and the corruption system he had built. In one such interview, he noted that the idea of a “national, sovereign, bourgeois Hungary” proclaimed by the Orbán government was in fact a “political product” that served to hide massive corruption and the redistribution of wealth in favor of those with the “right connections,” as well as the fact that “a few families own half of Hungary.”
He criticized, in particular, the Minister of the Prime Minister’s Cabinet Antal Rogan for pressure on law enforcement and judicial authorities, as well as falsifications in corruption cases. In an interview with independent media, P. Magyar stated that while working in the state system he himself was subjected to pressure from the office of V. Orbán and A. Rogan, in particular, in the issue of giving preferences to people close to the Hungarian Prime Minister during tenders.
In March 2024, he published an audio recording where his ex-wife Judit Varga, the former Minister of Justice of Hungary, talked about how some government officials had evidence removed from court records in order to hide their role in corruption schemes. The leaked conversation confirmed that the independence and impartiality of the Ministry of Justice and the Hungarian Prosecutor’s Office was purely formal, and that final decisions on sensitive cases were not made by investigative bodies, but at the highest political level.
P. Magyar also published other materials on how V. Orbán ensured the immunity of business and oligarchic groups close to the government and covered up “their” corrupt officials. They discussed secret agreements, pressure on the prosecutor’s office, and the use of state institutions and law enforcement agencies to provide political and legal protection to the right people. In this way, P. Magyar managed to confirm to the general public that corruption in Hungary is not separate, unrelated episodes, but a whole system and an integral part of V. Orbán’s political system. The mobilization of the opposition electorate and the formation of an opposition force began in fact against the backdrop of P. Magyar’s corruption revelations. The “Tysa” party declared the fight against corruption and abuses one of its key goals and priority topics of the election campaign.
A significant part of the opposition electorate perceives Magyar not just as an ordinary political opponent of V. Orbán, but as an experienced and responsible figure who was able to demonstrate not only lawlessness and abuse in the highest echelons of power, but also how the mechanism of avoiding responsibility works.
These and other revelations directly hit V. Orbán’s key propaganda narrative about a “strong and legitimate state”. After the publication of the incriminating records, the ratings and support of the opposition party “Tisa” went up, even in those regions that were previously considered pro-government. The trend witnessed the transition of part of the electorate of the “Fidesz” party to the side of the opposition.
Against the backdrop of P. Magyar’s growing popularity, pro-government media have intensified their attempts to discredit him, spreading an unsubstantiated narrative about alleged “external” funding and work in the interests of “foreign” forces.
In early February 2026, P. Magyar warned of an attempt by the authorities to compromise him through an intimate video filmed by hidden cameras. He himself called such actions a classic technology of “Russian-type” political compromise and accused V. Orban’s entourage of this. As a result, attempts to discredit P. Magyar by pro-government media do not achieve the intended effect, and in some cases even contribute to strengthening his public image as a principled opposition figure worthy of trust.
At the same time, a series of revelations by P. Magyar significantly changed and strengthened the position of the Hungarian opposition, providing it with what it had lacked for many years, namely objective and verified evidence of abuse of power. Unlike abstract accusations, this data is much more difficult to neutralize using standard propaganda or communication techniques.
As the political struggle intensifies, Hungarian society must decide whether it is ready to make the right choice and give a chance to new faces who are ready to radically change the country or choose to preserve the existing corrupt model of power of V. Orbán. Ultimately, the outcome of the elections will determine not only the composition of the next government, but also whether Hungary will be able to restore the rule of law and restore Europe’s trust.