The Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán is facing a new challenge: the lawyer Péter Magyar is founding an opposition movement and is striving for complete change in Hungary.
Five-time Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party were embroiled in a scandal three months ago that shattered the party’s image as a champion of family values and Christian conservatism. This is reported by “AP”.
After close Orbán allies resigned over the pardon of a child abuse cover-up, lawyer Péter Magyar seized the opportunity and separated from the party. Within weeks, he built a political movement that is now considered the largest opposition force in Hungary and will face Orbán’s party in the European and local elections on June 9.
Despite a decline in his popularity and a deep economic crisis, Orbán’s party is still expected to do better than his opponents. However, Magyar managed to capitalize on growing discontent with Orbán. He presents himself as a more moderate conservative alternative and accuses the Orbán government of deep corruption.
Magyar said in an interview with AP: “We have to do something completely different in Hungary,” emphasizing that Hungarians are “fed up with the fact that there is an economic, political, moral, legal and existential crisis here in 2024.”
Magyar has been touring rural Hungary since April to drum up support. At a rally in the city of Debrecen, he criticized other opposition parties for abandoning rural Hungarians.
Orbán has portrayed this year’s elections as an existential battle between war and peace, portraying his party as the only possible choice as it calls for an immediate end to fighting in Ukraine. But critics say this would allow Russia to keep the occupied territories and encourage Putin to carry out further attacks.
Magyar made it clear in an interview with AP that his foreign policy stance differs from that of Orbán: “Putin is the aggressor, Putin attacked Ukraine and there is no excuse for that. Ukraine’s struggle for territorial defense is absolutely justified.”