Hungarian opposition leader Magyar promised during the election campaign to turn Hungary towards the West

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungarian opposition leader Peter Magyar launched his party’s election campaign in Budapest on Sunday, pledging to restore Hungary’s western orientation just before he faces Prime Minister Viktor Orban in a key vote.

Magyar, a former insider in Orbán’s nationalist Fidesz party, entered the Hungarian political scene in 2024 after breaking ties with his political community and promptly forming the center-right Tisza Party.

After taking around 30% of the vote in the June 2024 European Parliament elections, he has developed Tisza into the most powerful political force Orbán has faced in his 16 years at the helm of Hungary. Most independent polls show Tija with a significant lead ahead of the April 12 vote, an advantage that has remained stable for more than a year.

“We stand on the threshold of victory and there are 56 days to go. Tisza is ready to rule,” he told supporters at an exhibition center in Budapest on Sunday.

Magyar has campaigned hard in Hungary’s rural, conservative heartland – traditionally Orbán’s stronghold – holding rallies and town hall events in many villages and towns. He has focused on bread-and-butter issues such as low wages and the rapidly rising cost of living that have made Hungary one of the poorest countries in the European Union.

Magyar accuses Orbán and his government of abusing Hungary’s economy and social services, and oversees unchecked corruption that he says has concentrated extreme wealth in a small circle of well-connected insiders, leaving ordinary Hungarians behind.

He has criticized Orbán for pursuing a bellicose foreign policy with the EU while maintaining close ties with Russia despite the war in neighboring Ukraine.

On Sunday, Magyar pointed to meetings with several European leaders at the Munich Security Conference in Germany over the weekend and said he would end Hungary’s “exit from the European Union” under Orban.

“Hungary’s place is in Europe, not only because Hungary needs Europe, but also because Europe needs Hungary,” he said.

Magyar’s comments contrasted sharply with statements Orbán made at his own campaign launch a day earlier, where he said the real threat Hungary faced was not a military attack from Russia, but the European Union.

Tiza’s program

In a 239-page program released last week, Tisza laid out his plans for how to govern Hungary if he wins the April election. Fidesz has not released a programme, arguing that after 16 years in power, its voters know what kind of policies to expect.

On Sunday, Magyar reiterated that his party plans to replace Orbán’s government, built on the country’s southern border in 2015, and said he would maintain Fidesz’s policies of opposing illegal immigration and any accelerated process for Ukraine to join the EU.

However, Magyar has promised to bring home billions in funds the EU has suspended Hungary over concerns that Urban has eroded democratic institutions, reduced judicial independence and failed to crack down on corruption.

The program promises to meet the conditions for adopting the euro currency by 2030 and invest in Hungary’s weak state healthcare and public transport sectors. Tisza also plans to crackdown on corruption and recover public funds that have been funneled into the hands of government-linked oligarchs.

“It is time to call corruption theft,” Magyar said on Sunday.

Candidates of Tiza

For its candidates in each of Hungary’s 106 individual voting constituencies, Tisza has largely attracted locally active political neophytes in the form of entrepreneurs, doctors, economists, academics and other professionals.

Leading the ticket alongside Magyar are international energy expert Anita Orbán (no relation to the prime minister), whom the party has tapped as its potential foreign policy chief, and former Shell executive Istvan Kapitani, who will fill a senior economics position in a future Tisza government.

Such candidates, Magyar has argued, would provide regional expertise that he says is lacking under Orbán’s government, and help rebuild relations with Western partners and end Hungary’s international isolation.

“I am proud that our experts are once again showing what it means to take the country’s fundamental issues seriously and plan for our common future,” he said on Sunday. “We do not plan to dominate this country, but to serve it.”