The communication package
Meanwhile, the head of government seemed to be having a good time, shown doing weight training at the gym, with his coach as “ami“, the former bodybuilder, actor and governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger came to visit him. To erase this big communication failure, the government worked hard. Between September 15 and 21, the week of the floods, the government spent the equivalent of 160,000 euros on political advertisements on social networks, including 115,000 euros for Viktor Orban’s Facebook page alone. Illustration of the asymmetry of the forces present, the mayor of Budapest Gergely Karacsony, although in first place. line in flood management, and Péter Magyar’s Tisza party spent less than a thousand euros in the same time.
In Hungary, will Magyar overshadow Orban?
If the Fidesz party still has control over the state and its resources, the air has completely changed. Since he burst onto the scene at the start of the year, Peter Magyar, 43, has anchored himself in Hungarian political life. Two recent polls place his liberal-conservative Tisza party as a serious competitor to Fidesz, 34% against 39% according to Idea and 39% against 43% according to Medián.
Until then uncontested in Hungary, Viktor Orbán abandoned the national field after his victory in the 2022 legislative elections and the Russian invasion of neighboring Ukraine. His diplomatic “on the move” took him this summer to kyiv, Moscow and Beijing during a “peace mission” much criticized by the European Union, to Donald Trump in Florida or even to Giorgia Meloni on the shores of Lake Como at the beginning of September. While he was busy carving out an international costume, his rival Péter Magyar plowed the lands of Fidesz and traced his furrow, for example visiting the country’s hospitals one by one this summer to denounce their state of dilapidation and the bedridden patients. in rooms where the temperature exceeded 30°C.
Peter Magyar, the renegade on crusade against Viktor Orban
Takeover
Viktor Orban still does not pronounce the name of this unexpected rival, nor that of his party. But he now publicly recognizes that the cards have been reshuffled and that from now on it will no longer be enough to raise the scarecrow of the former socialist Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány to win the elections. A sign of this change, the head of government has returned to sport and diet and, something improbable, he is speaking to the independent press. “Because I missed you”he simply replied, mockingly, to the surprised journalists.
“Orban can choose between de-escalation to win back moderate votes or escalation towards a total attack on political and civil liberties”summarizes Stefano Bottoni, historian specializing in Hungary. He has a year and a half left before the legislative elections in spring 2026 to redress the situation. This in a context of decreasing but still high inflation and a crisis in the German automobile industry, its main trading partner, which could have serious consequences for Central Europe and Hungary.
His cabinet is preparing the heavy artillery: strong increases in the minimum wage which he wants to index to the average wage. Despite the government’s denials, the opposition is worried about a new reform of the electoral system and the creation of constituencies abroad, in Serbia and Romania in particular, which could automatically guarantee Fidesz 6 to 8 seats out of 199. For this, the European billions still blocked by the European Commission will be vital for him.
