There is one date that has stayed with me throughout my more than thirty years in European politics: 16 April 1994. On that day, Hungary submitted its application to join the European Union, becoming the first post-communist country to do so. At the time, Budapest seemed to be the most vibrant and promising capital in Eastern Europe. I had visited as a young federalist activist, and the European youth movements were full of Hungarians, some of whom were destined for brilliant careers. I was also in Budapest in November 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell. I remember the young people from Fidesz and the somewhat bewildered members of the East German Communist Party very well. Fidesz was then a small movement of young democrats who were liberal and openly pro-European. Its leader, Viktor Orbán, had just delivered his most famous speech in Heroes' Square in front of 250,000 people. In it, he called for free elections and the withdrawal of Soviet troops. Orbán was a young man who had studied liberal political philosophy at Oxford thanks to a scholarship from George Soros — the very same Soros whom Orbán would later turn into his arch-enemy and the bogeyman of every election campaign. Thirty years on, Hungary is experiencing its most significant election campaign since joining the EU in 2004.

The story of Viktor Orbán's rise to power is also one of European complicity and inaction in the slow erosion of Hungary's fledgling democracy since 2010. EU institutions, particularly the Council and the Commission, failed to act for years despite ample grounds for invoking Article 7, inserted into the Treaty prior to the 2004 enlargement to address potential authoritarian tendencies among new members. While the European Parliament had been denouncing the dismantling of the independent judiciary, the muzzling of the media, the rewriting of parliamentary procedures to allow the government to pass a law within 24 hours, the rewriting of the constitution and the redefinition of electoral constituencies as early as 2012, the Commission finally took action by applying conditionality to European funds, but too late and too weakly. Manfred Weber and Angela Merkel’s EPP bear huge responsibility: for years, they kept Fidesz in the group as an awkward but useful partner, shielding it from sanctions and normalising its increasingly xenophobic rhetoric. It was only in 2021, after years of back-and-forth, that Fidesz left or was expelled from the group, depending on one’s perspective. Another accomplice that tends to be forgotten is: European economic policy during the years of the great crisis. While the Commission was criticising Tsipras’ Greece, Orbán was able to grow virtually unchallenged, distributing billions in European funds to his oligarchs and building his ‘para-mafia’ state with taxpayers’ money from across Europe. By the end of 2017, 80% of Hungary’s structural funds for the 2014–2021 period had already been allocated, with 5.6 billion being spent in December of that year alone — a frantic rush ahead of the elections that everyone in Brussels was aware of, yet nobody stopped. As a Hungarian journalist wrote at the time with bitter precision, 'Orbán is Putinising Hungary with EU funds'.

Yet even the most enduring myths eventually crumble. Orbán's began to crumble not because of the traditional opposition, which lost four elections in a row — including the resounding defeat in 2022, when all parties, from the far right to the Greens, ran together without managing to dent his majority — but because of internal cracks within the regime and the harsh economic reality. Since the onset of the pandemic, Hungary's growth has fallen below the European average. Inflation has eroded wages that were already low compared to the rest of Central Europe. Hospitals and schools bear the scars of a decade and a half of clientelist plundering. Then came the scandal: in 2024, the independent press revealed a serious case of child sexual abuse within the inner circle of the regime. Orbán shifted all the blame onto the President of the Republic, Katalin Novák, and the Minister of Justice, Judit Varga — the party’s two most prominent female figures — forcing them to resign. It was at this point that Péter Magyar, Judit Varga’s ex-husband — a man who had previously been part of the system — entered the scene, publicly accusing Orbán of building a corrupt state controlled by 'mafia-like' systems. His profile as an insider who had turned against the system rather than as a political opponent was exactly what many Hungarians had been waiting for.

Magyar established TISZA through a grassroots campaign, town by town, even in Fidesz strongholds. He visited dilapidated hospitals to document the decay and organised rallies in squares where no opposition had been seen for years. While his views are more conservative than many Hungarian and European progressives would like, he nonetheless embodies the tangible hope of change.

The fact remains that winning will not be easy. The electoral system has been shaped by Fidesz to favour itself, with a 'winner takes all' mechanism and ad hoc redrawing of constituencies meaning that TISZA would require a lead of 5–6 percentage points to secure a slim majority of seats. While independent polls show a gap of as much as 20 percentage points, internal polls within both parties indicate a narrower margin. Furthermore, agents of the Russian GRU, who were active in the Moldovan elections, have reportedly arrived in Hungary to aid Fidesz. There is a well-established system of vote-buying in Roma communities and the poorest rural areas involving money, food, livestock, alcohol and, at times, explicit threats to cut off water and electricity or take away the children of those who do not vote as expected. Experts estimate that this could sway around 6% of the total vote, or half a million votes. Then there are the postal votes cast by Hungarians in neighbouring countries, which are systematically 'managed' by parties linked to Fidesz in Serbia, Romania, and Slovakia. According to many commentators, this has been the ‘dirtiest’ campaign in decades. Fidesz portrays Magyar as an agent of Zelensky and 'Brussels', accuses the opposition of high treason, raises the spectre of war and claims that Kyiv is boycotting Hungary over energy supplies. Over the past sixteen years, Fidesz has built up almost total control over the media, including newspapers, radio, television, billboards and even health and administrative service apps, which have been systematically bought up and are now under its control. Yet the system is showing increasingly obvious cracks: for the first time, a senior judicial police official and an army officer have publicly spoken of the unbearable political pressure they have faced.

Even if Magyar were to win, however, no one should be under any illusion that change would be swift or painless. One need only look at Poland under Donald Tusk to understand how difficult it is to dismantle a system built to last. Tusk won the 2023 elections, yet more than two years later, he is still grappling with a hostile Constitutional Court and judiciary, state media that do not answer to the elected government and a President of the Republic who vetoes every reform. In Hungary, the situation is even more entrenched, with sixteen years of meticulous work on every institution, appointment and rule of the game. Even if TISZA were to win without a two-thirds supermajority — a scenario that is far from unlikely — Fidesz would retain its constitutional powers for weeks during the transition period and could amend further laws before stepping down. In any case, dismantling the Orbán system will not be straightforward. Nevertheless, if Fidesz were to lose the elections, it would be good news indeed. Not just for Hungarians. Orbán has built his career on the idea that the illiberal model is the future and that his nationalist-driven 'electoral autocracy' could serve as a model for the entire Union. He has sought to undermine it from within by reducing it to a giant cash machine. He has inspired right-wing movements and parties across Europe, setting an example for those who wish to demonstrate that democracy and the rule of law are negotiable. His defeat would shatter that myth. It would also improve the balance of power within the European Council by stripping Hungary of its role as a privileged channel for Putin into the Union, as well as its status as a constant source of vetoes and obstacles.

Magyar is not left-wing. TISZA sits in the EPP — the very same group that has covered for Orbán for years. His views on rights, migration, and a federal Europe differ greatly from my own. However, if he wins, it will be partly thanks to the votes of progressives, environmentalists, liberals, social democrats and Hungarians who are tired of the regime. The resulting government will be supported by a broad consensus and, for better or worse, will have to answer to a pluralistic society.

In the summer of 1989, the young man who called for freedom and free elections in Heroes' Square in Budapest seemed to embody the European promise. However, he then betrayed that promise, along with an entire country. Today, it is other Hungarians who must take up that promise, under far more difficult conditions and on a rigged playing field. They deserve the support of the European Union, which must not look the other way this time.

[1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/it/press-room/20220909IPR40137/parlamento-l-ungheria-non-puo-piu-essere-considerata-pienamente-una-democrazia

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