The fight for power in Hungary reminds me of a classic thriller film. Such a comparison reflects the scale of tension that accompanies the clash of two extreme visions of the state. On the one hand, we have the predictable one, Eastern in style and sluggish after 16 years of almost authoritarian rule. On the other hand, the opposition's dynamic, partisan and European offer, which, despite the lack of access to public media, managed to arouse great hopes in Hungary. It is a duel for everything: the choice between Russia's sphere of influence and its presence in the European Union. In this fight, all moves are allowed – at least according to the stronger side.
Fidesz, the party in power that controls the state apparatus, media and services, builds a message based on fear. He suggests that the greatest threat is Ukraine, and the opposition is a “party of war” ready to send Hungarians to the front. The strength of the TISZA group is the emotions of voters, the young energy of activists and campaign creativity. Paradoxically, the most important point of TISZ leader Peter Magyar's program is a return to the original, ambitious slogans of Fidesz from the times when they formed one camp with Orban. The advantage of the 62-year-old Orban is the experience of 37 years in politics, five terms of office as prime minister, including the last four uninterrupted terms.
There is no symbolic passing of the baton here; a rather brutal question arises about who will kill whom with a baton. And whether it will be a truncheon based on the services' hooks or media slander. Because this is a political fight to the death.
Pedophile scandal in Bicske
The pedophilia scandal of the winter of 2024 turned out to be a seismic shock. It broke out in the orphanage in Bicske, where the deputy head of the facility, Endre K., helped cover up the rapes of the children under his care. The scandal became a death sentence for the old system when it came to light that the perpetrator had received a presidential pardon. On February 16, 150,000 people gathered on Heroes' Square in Budapest. demonstrators in a moral civic protest. President Katalin Novak and Justice Minister Judit Varga, the ex-wife of Peter Magyar, were forced to resign.
The authorities did not answer the question who ordered the release of the accused. On April 6, 2024, the largest demonstration in the history of Hungary after 1989 took place. This gathering was organized by Peter Magyar, then 42, who left Fidesz as a sign of protest. He took over the social energy caused by the scandal and turned it into subsequent political marches. He recovered national symbolism for the opposition, encouraging participants to bring Hungarian flags instead of party symbols. The demonstrations led to the permanent mobilization of the electorate, which had previously been passive.
And four days later, he announced the participation of the TISZA party in the elections to the European Parliament.
Szabolcs Panyi reveals: Peter Szijjarto passed on EU secrets to Lavrov
The last few months have been a time of fatigue and confusion for Hungarians. The biggest charges – espionage and treason – became everyday elements of campaign rhetoric.
The scandal revealed on March 23, 2026, when Szabolcs Panyi from the Direkt36 website published a sensational text (the topic had appeared earlier in the weekend “Washington Post”, although not in such depth) received particularly strong attention. The publication showed that the head of Hungarian diplomacy, Péter Szijjártó, allegedly passed EU secrets to Russian minister Sergei Lavrov. Szijjarto, a regular guest in Moscow and Minsk, was called by Magyar “Moscow's man”, which – according to the leader of TISHA – should be punishable by life imprisonment.
Peter Szijjarto and Sergei LavrovWiktor Dąbkowski, TATYANA MAKEYEVA / POOL / AFP / PAP
The Orban machine responded immediately, accusing journalist Panyi of collaborating with the intelligence services of Ukraine, the European Union and the USA at the same time. Ironic voices appeared in the independent media that United States interference in Hungarian policy should become a key point of the visit of US Vice President JD Vance.
The authorities, instead of addressing the allegations of a “Putin ear” in EU structures, created a story about a data trafficker, trying to turn the investigator into an agent and undermine his credibility before voting day.
Hungarian elections: what the polls say
Polls have become another battlefield. Although state centers try not to disturb the Fidesz electorate, most independent studios show a trend of a slow but clear surge of support for the TISHA party. They give it between 6-10 percent. advantage over Fidesz, although there was also one sensational result: the opposition's advantage was as much as 23 points, which would mean a political tsunami.
But there's more at stake than math. If Magyar manages to take over the Prime Minister's Office, the center of the fear system will collapse, even though most positions in the state will remain in the hands of the Orbanists. Then, for the second time since 1989, the slogan “Russians go home” can be heard on the Danube. This time, however, not as a call for young Orbán, but as a shout against him.
Who is Antal Rogan?
Sowing fear and doubt, accusations against independent journalists, as well as most of the accusations against the leader of the opposition, are products from Antal Rogan's laboratory. If Viktor Orban is the face of the system, then Rogan is its nervous system. As head of the prime minister's office, he did something unheard of in modern Europe: he concentrated the entire state machinery in one hand – from propaganda to all secret services.
Antal RoganAttila Kisbenedek / AFP
He is called Cardinal Richelieu of the Hungarian political scene. Although he is not French or even Hungarian, he is a Slovenian who does not like to boast about his roots. If the services overhear Magyar's inconvenient statement, the information does not reach the prosecutor to initiate an investigation. It goes straight to the editor's desk at MTVA public television to become the news of the day.
Rogan has optimized the state so that every secret is ammunition and every reason for fear is fuel for Fidesz.
The first scenario: the prosecutor's office of Peter Polt – a faithful guardian of the system – suddenly finds a paragraph in the files from years ago allowing Magyar to be charged with revealing state secrets. Pre-trial detention for 72 hours at the very end of the campaign? In Antal Rogan's world, it is a precise cut intended to eliminate the TISZA leader from the public space at the moment when the movement is strongest.
The second scenario: a maneuver using “national security” as the universal key. This is where the threat of postponing the election date by 90 days comes into play. Officially: due to “reliable information about the planned wave of violence” or “threat to the candidates' lives.” This is the most cynical of all: the state pretends to protect Magyar only to actually incapacitate him.
The fact that these scripts were leaked is already part of Rogan's game. This is “anxiety management” in its purest form.
The Hungarian electoral training ground has become a place where political theory dies and a completely new, brutal practice is born. On the one hand, we are dealing with a “total import” of methods from the East. This is no longer a simple fight for votes, it is advanced social engineering in which the state apparatus of Hungary and the technological base of the Russian Federation work as one organism. Anne Applebaum describes it as a “post-reality campaign.” We live in a world where artificial intelligence and troll farms build alternative universes full of fear.
The system floods the network with content suggesting that the opposition leader is controlled by foreign intelligence services, and seniors receive text messages about alleged “universal military conscription.” In the face of this scale of digital invasion, recent ideas to fake a physical attack on Prime Minister Vikor Orban lose their power. You don't need gunpowder here, all you need is an algorithm and the reach of pro-government accounts on TikTok, where Putin's face is mixed with Fidesz's campaign.
A poster with the image of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on a street in Budapest, March 30, 2026.JPix / NurPhoto / NurPhoto via AFP / AFP
Magyar's people
However, this eastern machine has for the first time encountered resistance that it cannot catalog. What Pater Magyar does is rather “political street art”, a guerrilla of emotions that plays on completely different registers than Rogan's crude propaganda.
Pater Magyar challenged Orban by taking over the TISHA party, a couch potato organization from Eger. People who boarded the “boat” taken over in this way make the current government team look like a reconstruction group.
Istvan Kapitany, former vice president of Shell, gives Magyar credibility in the eyes of big business. Mark Radnai is the mastermind behind Operation Free Elections 2026. Anita Orban, an international energy expert, knows the corridors of Washington better than anyone in the current Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Its presence is a clear signal: TISHA is a return to the alliance with the West.
However, the average Hungarian will not see these faces in public broadcasting. Hungary is divided into two worlds: television and internet. This stylistic gap is the border of two civilizations – the clunky past on the TV screen and the digital, European future in the smartphones of young Hungarians.
Peter Magyar looks at Fidesz
While Orbán's system invests millions in fear algorithms, TISZA is building a physical community through “TISZA Islands” (TISZA Szigetek) – living centers of dialogue. Magyar travels around the country and it seems that this way he hits the system the hardest, because where the government tries to create fear through technology, TISHA focuses on physical proximity.
Peter Magyar looks at today's Fidesz not as an enemy, but as an heir. As a relative of Ferenc Madl (president in 2000-2005 and his grandmother's brother), he feels an obligation to restore dignity to the office. He doesn't want to overturn the table of the Hungarian lifestyle – he wants to throw away what is corrupt from this lifestyle. And what he calls the Rogan system.
