Hungary is probably the only country in Europe where, just over a month before the elections on April 12, the picture might be so unclear, so foggy. “Anything can happen, everything is possible, the final result depends on many factors,” says every cool-headed Hungarian interlocutor I talk to. This is surprising because six months ago, the opposition led by Peter Magyar could have been really confident. And not because it had an advantage in most polls, which are hardly less reliable anywhere else than in Budapest. Above all, it was the opposition that set the agenda for the campaign, which has been in full swing for over a year. The main topics in the media and public debate were issues raised by the opposition, such as the state of childcare in orphanages or the allegedly lower standard of living of Hungarians compared to Romanians (I like Romania, but this is nonsense).
The opposition took advantage of the obvious bonus provided by the long period in power of Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party. After sixteen years, the government cannot say that it has nothing to do with anything because its predecessors were to blame. Its critics can point out negligence and shortcomings in every issue. In line with the latest trends in election campaigns, this went much further than criticism.
The opposition’s goal in each issue was to cause moral panic and fear among voters. Recently, environmental threats have also been included. Apparently, something is wrong with the battery factory. Really? The government is definitely poisoning people on purpose. This is a copy-paste from the elections in Poland, where the government was accused of deliberately poisoning the second largest river in Poland with mercury, which, according to the media, was confirmed by German laboratories. It later turned out that the fish were dying because of toxins secreted by a type of algae.
The Hungarian opposition managed to focus voters’ attention on real or imagined scandals for a while. Therefore, when Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said at the famous Hungarian cultural festival Tusványos , in what is now Transylvania, Romania, that if elections were held that day, Fidesz would win, it was perceived as official optimism rather than a realistic assessment of the situation. “God willing, but we have to come up with something,” said the Fidesz activist sitting next to me in a straw hat, which is the hallmark of festival guests.
Nothing new was invented, but there was no need to. Orbán did not make the mistake that an inexperienced politician would probably have made. He did not accept battle on the opponent’s chosen place, although he gladly exploited economic leaks from the opposition camp, pointing to a planned shift towards economic turbo-liberalism, while increasing the pressure on social protection for families. He fought the election battle on his own terms. It centred on issues that are just as important as living standards, if not more so, for Hungarians and every other European in Central and Eastern Europe after 2022: Peace and war, energy and borders, alliances and the military.
Supported by the European establishment, the opposition Tisza party – one might even say created by that establishment – was able to dress itself up as the “old Fidesz” on many issues. Tailored to detach voters from the real Fidesz, it began to present itself as a nationalist and conservative movement.
But on this one issue, the attitude towards the war in Ukraine, it was impossible to change its image. Too much had been invested in Brussels and the left-liberal media across Europe in building the image of the evil Orbán – Putin’s “ally” – for Tisza to suddenly become like him on this issue. The more apparent the consequences of the war in Ukraine became, from the energy challenges in which Hungary has radically less room for manoeuvre than other countries in the region due to its location, to discussions about sending European soldiers to Ukraine, the more pronounced the difference became. It could not be otherwise: Since the opposition is so pro-Brussels and Brussels is so pro-Ukraine, the opposition must also be pro-Ukraine. In the language of Hungarian politics: Pro-war.
The last few weeks and days have brought a radical intensification of this difference. A video shown by Fidesz in which a little girl misses her father who is being killed in captivity at the same time. The action carried out by the head of diplomacy, Peter Szijjarto, to free two Hungarians who, as soldiers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, found themselves in Russian captivity. The outburst of emotion from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who threatened Prime Minister Orbán that he would “give his address to the soldiers so they could talk to him in their own way”.
Finally, the detention on a Hungarian motorway of a van with a strange cargo of millions of dollars and gold. “For many Hungarians, this series of events is a real shock. Many realise that war is really close and believe that these elections could truly be a decision about war or peace,” a Polish man living in Budapest tells me.
Magyar and his advisers quickly sensed the danger. They attempted a radical change of course. The opposition leader demanded a strong response from the European Union and that Zelensky retract his words. “No Hungarian can be intimidated by the leader of a foreign country. Neither Orbán’s government nor Tisza’s future government,” he said. The media favourable to him considered this a skilful defusing of the bomb. But is that really the case?
At the end of the day, we are not in Magyar’s backyard, with the natural economic frustrations he refers to, but in the area where Prime Minister Orbán feels strongest: Keeping Hungary out of war and maintaining good relations with all the world’s powers. That is why the latest post by the Fidesz leader announces that “there is a war raging at our doorstep. Hungary has a government that will not send soldiers to Ukraine, will not send weapons to Ukraine, will not fund the conflict. The stakes of the next election are clear. Hungary must stay out of this war!”
We do not know if this will be enough to convince voters to entrust him with power for another four years; No one knows that today. But he has a much better chance in this discussion. This is a major success for Fidesz at this stage of the campaign.
Rubio in Hungary, this could be a game changer