2,706 words

The world’s eyes were on Western Europe in Sunday’s European Union elections, where dramatic results were expected in France and Germany. Angelo Plume has already offered an account of these results. But unusual things have been happening in Hungary as well, which has been a focal point of hope for populism ever since Prime Minister Viktor Orbán began his current tenure in 2010.

Hungary, of course, wields little power in comparison to the “great nations” of Western Europe. Hungary is only allotted 21 seats out of 720 in the European Parliament, compared to Germany’s 96 and France’s 81. But thanks to Mr. Orbán, Hungary has been punching far above its weight internationally, where his regime is regarded by the United States and Western European establishments as a troublesome maverick — and, of course, as a government of “Right-wing extremists.” This is nonsense, of course; unlike Western governments, Orbán simply pursues what could be described as sensible centrist policies tailored to his country’s needs. It is only in the eyes of Western liberals and their allies within Hungary that he appears as something “extreme” — and admittedly, Orbán does little to counter the way his government is portrayed in the West. After all, he couldn’t buy such free PR for his policies.

As a result, for the past 14 years Hungarian liberals, as well as their globalist backers in the West, have been desperately looking for some way to halt, or even slow, the seemingly unstoppable string of successes of Orbán’s political machine. In election after election, Orbán’s party, Fidesz, has continually beaten down every challenge the opposition has thrown at him. This culminated in Hungary’s 2022 national election, in which all the major Left-liberal parties, as well as the formerly Right-wing party, Jobbik, joined together in one bloc — well-funded with $5 million in support from a US non-governmental organization, it later turned out — in the hope of unseating Orbán once and for all, or at least knocking him down a few notches. In the end, they fared even worse than they had when running against Fidesz as separate parties and received a humiliatingly crushing defeat. It looked as if the Leftist opposition was finished and that Orbán was indeed politically invincible, and would likely remain in office until he decided to retire.

Until now. Maybe.

The European parliamentary elections are not taken very seriously by most voters, since the EU wields little power over ordinary people’s lives in comparison to their national governments. This may be a misapprehension, however, especially given that in December 2023, the European Parliament voted to adopt 267 amendments to the EU’s foundational treaties. If these amendments end up being put into practice, it will mean a substantial weakening of the sovereignty of the EU’s Member States, which will be expected to accept radical liberal ideas about a range of issues — or else. This matter falls outside the scope of this essay, however; to learn more about these amendments, please see the report that was recently published by the Ordo Iuris Institute in Poland on the matter.

Regardless of the EU elections’ perceived lack of gravity in comparison to national elections, they are a useful barometer of the political winds across Europe, especially as voters tend to be more willing to vote for more “radical” candidates in the European elections than they typically do in the national ones. While Orbán’s Fidesz handily dominated Sunday’s election, winning 11 of Hungary’s 21 European Parliament seats, seven were won by a party that was totally unknown in the country until just a few months ago: Péter Magyar’s “Respect and Freedom Party,” or TISZA as it is abbreviated in Hungarian.

To understand how this happened, it is necessary to give some background — some of which sounds as if it could have come out of a soap opera. On February 2 of this year, one of the major Left-wing media outlets in Hungary exposed the fact that two prominent members of Viktor Orbán’s government had granted a pardon to Endre Kónya. Kónya was formerly the Deputy Director of a home for children in the town of Bicske. He had been under house arrest pending charges for helping to arrange a cover-up for his superior at the school, János Vásárhely. Vásárhely had been convicted of having coerced ten of the children at the home into performing oral sex on him. When one of the children threatened to confess what he had been forced to do, Kónya attempted to help his boss conceal his crimes by blackmailing the child into remaining silent. The pair were nevertheless eventually exposed, and both Vásárhely and Kónya were sentenced to prison terms, Kónya having been charged with coercion.

For reasons that are still not entirely clear, Zoltán Balog later asked Hungary’s then-President, Katalin Novak, to grant Kónya a pardon. Balog is a former Fidesz politician as well as a bishop in the Hungarian Reformed Church. He also happens to have been Novak’s former boss. Novak granted his request and pardoned Kónya in April 2023, and by law the pardon had to be countersigned by the Minister of Justice, who was then Judit Varga. The evidence suggests that none of those involved believed that the matter would ever come to light in the public eye.

When the story broke in the Hungarian press in February, it hit Fidesz’s credibility heavily. Novak and Varga — both of whom were seen as close allies of Orbán personally — were among the most prominent members of the Fidesz government at the time. The two were forced to resign in disgrace. Worse, it tarnished Fidesz’s carefully-crafted image as the guardian of family values. In 2021, Orbán’s government had adopted new legislation that, among other things, imposed harsher penalties for pedophiles to great fanfare. Thus, this revelation was the ultimate reinforcement of the endless liberal accusations that Orbán’s government is corrupt — and naturally, the opposition was jubilant.

Fidesz has survived scandals, and even sex scandals, before. In 2019, shortly before that year’s municipal elections, a video showing the Fidesz Mayor of Győr, a prominent Hungarian city, having an orgy with prostitutes on a boat in Croatia surfaced. His name was Zsolt Borkai. The opposition had a field day with the story, but it had no long-term effect on the party, and Borkai himself in fact won reelection after the scandal broke. (He resigned shortly thereafter.)

What made this year’s scandal different was a wild card that no one could have anticipated: Péter Magyar. Magyar, you see, is the former husband of the former Minister of Justice, Judit Varga. Magyar and Varga got divorced last year following 16 years of marriage. A lawyer by profession, Magyar had held a number of low-profile posts within Fidesz, but more importantly, as a result of his association with his wife, he had had access to Fidesz’s inner circle for many years. This put him in a unique positon, with a unique degree of credibility, to criticize and attack Orbán’s government. In other words, he is a godsend to the anti-Orbán opposition.

Shortly after the revelations about the pardon scandal broke in February, Magyar hit the media circuit, regaling liberal Hungarians with tales of how Hungary has become a “mafia state” under Fidesz leadership and of how everything is decided in terms of who you know. He’s been rather short on proof for his allegations, however. Despite his claims of intimate knowledge of government corruption, the only concrete evidence he’s offered so far is a recording he secretly made of his wife — nice bit of loyalty there — in January 2023, where she spoke about an attempt by some aides to Orbán’s cabinet to intervene in a corruption case against a Fidesz official. It’s bad, sure, but not exactly a smoking gun that can be pinned on the entire government.

The anti-Orbán crowd ate it up, however. This is exactly the sort of thing they’d been looking for. Magyar appeared to be offering them actual proof of the allegations they’ve been making against Orbán’s government from Day 1. Riding the wave of his newfound popularity, on March 15 — a national holiday, as it’s the anniversary of Hungary’s revolt against the Habsburgs in 1848 — Magyar announced that he was assuming the leadership of the TISZA party in order to compete in the European election. Although TISZA had been formed in 2021, it had remained inactive prior to Magyar’s ascendancy, and was totally unknown to the public at large. But Magyar’s success was meteoric, and polls prior to the European election showed him as having the support of as many as 25% of voters.

What exactly Magyar and TISZA stand for, however, is anyone’s guess. For his supporters, it’s enough for him to present himself as the guy who can finally bring down Orbán. In terms of policy proposals, he’s so far remained unremarkable. I’d be willing to bet that he has American advisors, though — and quite possibly CIA bucks as well. At one rally during his campaign, Magyar reiterated Orbán’s line on the war in Ukraine: that Hungary should remain out of the conflict, and that the best way to end the war is for the supply of arms and money to Kiev to be cut off, thus forcing the Ukrainians to come to the negotiating table. But a couple of days later, he apologized for his earlier remarks and called for Hungary and Europe to do all they can to keep the war going. In other words, someone told him that he needed to adopt Washington’s line on the war — fast. It will be interesting to see if he will attempt to develop an actual program in the months to come, or if he will continue to rely on simply not being Orbán.

Nevertheless, Magyar’s success in the European parliamentary elections is rather stunning. He managed to capture nearly 30% of the votes — even more than was expected according to the polls — after less than three months of campaigning, and despite having been a relatively unknown figure until a few months ago. Overnight, he has become the greatest threat to Orbán that the latter has faced in the last 20 years.

Orbán and his party are a long way from being finished, however. Fidesz still won nearly 45% of the votes, and due to the fact that voter turnout was very high, at 58.7% — a Hungarian record, I believe, for a European election — it means that more people voted for Fidesz than ever before, even if the party received a smaller percentage than in previous elections.

Ironically, the greatest damage that Magyar did was to the opposition parties. The entire opposition, including most of the parties that have been at the forefront of the attacks on Orbán over the past decade, was virtually shut out. Only one Left-liberal alliance managed to cross the mandatory 5% threshold for entering the European Parliament, garnering 8% of the vote and two seats. All the rest of those parties will be staying home for the next five years. Given the extreme ineptitude that the entire Left-liberal opposition has been demonstrating for many years now, it seems that the Hungarian voters finally realized that their incompetence is terminal.

The bad news for Rightists is that the “far Right” party of László Toroczkai, Mi Hazánk, just barely scraped by with 6.75% of the votes, and will be sending one representative to Brussels. Before Magyar exploded onto the scene, it had been hoped that Mi Hazánk might win several seats. As it turned out, many of their supporters seem to care more about getting rid of Orbán than about the principles that the party stands for. It was a disappointing result, but given the butchering that the entire opposition endured this time around, it should perhaps be seen as fortunate that they are entering the European Parliament at all.

The silver lining is that Jobbik, the once-promising “radical Right” party that then turned to the Soros-backed Left before finally rebranding itself as “conservative,” won only 1% of the vote and will thus not be sending anyone to Brussels for the first time since 2009. It’s a rather pathetic outcome for a party that was the second-largest in the Hungarian Parliament, and seen as a contender for replacing Fidesz, only a few years ago. This serves them right for their traitorous ways. Similarly, the “Second Reform Era Party,” which was established last year by former Jobbik leader Gábor Vona — the same one who took Jobbik into its disastrous dalliance with liberalism — in an attempted comeback scored less than 1%. And the “On the People’s Side” party, also established in 2023 and led by Péter Jakab, the proud descendant of Jewish Holocaust victims who became Jobbik’s leader when Vona stepped down, did not even compete in this election. So it seems the former Jobbik crew will be remaining on the sidelines of history for the time being. Let’s hope they stay there.

It should be mentioned that Hungary held its municipal elections on the same day, although the results of these elections would not be of interest to those living outside Hungary. It was nevertheless interesting that Gergely Karácsony, who is a major figure of the Left-liberal opposition, was running for reelection as Mayor of Budapest against Dávid Vitézy, an independent candidate who somehow managed to receive the backing of both Fidesz (he’s a cousin by marriage of Orbán’s) and some of the Left-liberal parties. Karácsony managed to win by only 324 votes — literally the skin of his teeth in a city of two million inhabitants.

It’s also worth mentioning the case of Laria Salis, an Italian antifa activist who has been kept under house arrest in Hungary since she was convicted of participating with comrades in brutal attacks on random Hungarians last year at the time of the Day of Honor march, an event held by various Right-wing groups to commemorate those Axis soldiers who attempted to break out from Budapest at the end of their epic battle against the Red Army in February 1945. Salis has been accused of attempted murder in the attacks, which were directed against those who Salis and her friends merely suspected of being participants in the march — without any actual proof. Salis was placed on the European Parliament list for Italy’s Green and Left Alliance, and she was actually elected on Sunday. Given that Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are granted diplomatic immunity even for past crimes, it is expected that Hungary will be forced to release Salis when she is sworn in or else face the wrath of the EU’s courts. It’s a tragic story, but hardly surprising in today’s Europe.

On the national stage in Hungary, it seems that the situation we now have is that the greatest threat to Orbán’s 14-year rule is a man who has apparently gone into national politics as a vengeance burn against his ex-wife — and quite possibly for CIA bucks as well. But Magyar’s long-term prospects seem uncertain. He’s certainly won over most of the anti-Orbán opposition to a degree, and with a fervor, that’s never been seen before. He also has many qualities that none of his colleagues have had: he’s charismatic, good-looking, speaks well, and has a symbolic name (“Magyar” means “Hungarian”). At the same time, however, it’s unclear if he can keep the momentum he is currently enjoying going for two more years, until the next national election. If he really wants to persuade enough Hungarians that he’s worthy of leading the country despite having virtually no political record, he’ll have to come up with more to campaign on than simply not being Orbán.

I’ve certainly been critical of Orbán and Fidesz in my writings on this site in the past. They are far from the ideal that we need in every country in order to turn our civilization around. Orbán most definitely isn’t the Right-wing demigod that he’s often made out to be. Nevertheless, there can be no question that he is preferable to his Left-liberal opposition. As such, it is to be hoped that this election will serve as a wake-up call to shake Fidesz out of the complacency it’s settled into after all these years. And if Magyar goes down in flames the same way as all of Orbán’s previous opponent have done, perhaps Mi Hazánk will be in a better position to offer Hungarians a truly superior program for dealing with the challenges we all face.