Peter Magyar, a 45-year-old former Fidesz insider, is leading a campaign across Hungary as he prepares to face Viktor Orban in the April 12 elections. According to BBC News, opinion polls suggest Magyar is on track to win.

Magyar’s Campaign: A Nation-Wide Effort

Magyar has visited more than 100 campaign stops, often giving four, five, or even six speeches a day. He has built a support base in small towns and villages where Fidesz traditionally holds sway, according to BBC News.

Magyar has walked 300 kilometers from Budapest to the Romanian border in a campaign to ‘reunite’ the nation, aiming to bring natural Fidesz voters to his side. He has promised to tackle corruption, improve the economy, and unlock billions of euros in EU funds that have been frozen due to concerns over Hungary’s rule of law, according to BBC News.

Orban’s Response: A ‘Puppet’ of the EU

Viktor Orban has labeled Magyar a ‘puppet’ of the EU and Ukraine, while Magyar has promised voters ‘we are the real party of peace,’ according to BBC News.

Magyar’s self-confidence stems from his deep understanding of Orban, whom he once called a ‘puppet’ of the EU. Magyar was a part of Fidesz until February 2024, when he stunned Hungarians by appearing on a pro-opposition YouTube channel called Partizán, according to BBC News.

Magyar explained why he had had enough of his own party, saying, ‘Everyone warned me against it, friends, family, people I know,’ according to BBC News.

Hungary was in the midst of a scandal involving President Katalin Novak, who granted a pardon to a man who had helped cover up sexual abuse in a state-run children’s home. She resigned, and so did Magyar’s ex-wife, Judit Varga, who had been justice minister and co-signed the pardon, according to BBC News.

Magyar wrote on Facebook, ‘I do not want to be part of a system in which the real people in charge hide behind women’s skirts.’ He spoke of his hope for political change, while realizing it would be very difficult while Orban was still in power, according to BBC News.

A Political Journey from Fidesz to Opposition

Peter Magyar’s high-profile party marriage had fallen apart in 2023, but he was still an important figure in Fidesz, according to BBC News.

Magyar was a natural fit for Orban’s social conservatives. The son of two lawyers, his mother was a senior judge, and he counted a former Hungarian president as his godfather, according to BBC News.

Magyar went to an elite Catholic boys’ high school near the center of Budapest before studying law at a Catholic university in Budapest while Orban was serving his first term as prime minister from 1998-2002, according to BBC News.

His wife, Judit Varga, was destined for Fidesz success, becoming justice minister in 2019, nine years after Orban’s return to office, according to BBC News. Magyar joined the party after Orban’s election defeat.

Magyar himself became a diplomat at Hungary’s permanent mission in Brussels, later running Orban’s team working with the European Parliament. He went on to serve on the boards of state-owned companies, according to BBC News.

Magyar’s disaffection with the party was gradual. He said, ‘After a while I became more and more critical, openly and just among friends. I can tell you that the Fidesz we see today is very very different from the one I joined in 2002.’ He told the BBC’s Budapest correspondent Nick Thorpe, ‘I was always told by the politicians it’s necessary to keep power – I accepted it for a time. But of course the turning point was in 2024.’

Magyar worried if he had made a mistake: ‘I have three kids, I love them very much and I was very much worried about their future as well,’ according to BBC News.

The next big moment came on 15 March 2024, a national holiday marking the anniversary of Hungary’s failed revolution in 1848. While Orban spoke from the steps of Budapest’s National Museum, condemning the EU and calling for the ‘occupation of Brussels,’ Magyar addressed an estimated 10,000 people, alleging corruption and mishandling the economy at the top, according to BBC News.

Magyar announced he was forming a new party, with only weeks to go before Hungarians voted in European elections. He doubled down on his accusations of corruption, releasing a secret recording made of a conversation with his ex-wife in 2023 in which she speaks about a high-profile trial, according to BBC News.

Judit Varga said she was appalled by Magyar’s actions, accusing him of abuse which he denied. He also fell out with a former friend, Orban minister Gergely Gulyás – who said Magyar was ‘one who first betrays his family, then betrays his country as an agent of Brussels,’ according to BBC News.

Asked what he thought of his challenger, Orban told the BBC: ‘He left Fidesz, that’s all.’ By now Varga’s ex-husband was making big strides politically and forming new friendships, including popular actor Ervin Nagy, according to BBC News.

Magyar took over a dormant party called Tisza and won 29.6% of the vote and seven seats in the European Parliament. Tisza was well behind Orban’s ruling Fidesz on 44.8%, but Magyar had made a powerful statement, according to BBC News.

By autumn 2024, Magyar’s new party was ahead of Fidesz in the polls and he tore into Orban’s close ties with Russia as they led rival marches marking Hungary’s 1956 uprising against the Soviet Union, according to BBC News.

While Orban labeled Tisza as ‘warmongers’ indulging in a ‘Brussels war march,’ Magyar taunted the prime minister as the man who had in 1989 called for Russian troops to leave Hungary but now trampled on the legacy of 1956 and was ‘the most loyal ally of the Kremlin,’ according to BBC News.

Magyar is no liberal. He has openly derided the liberal opposition that tried to take Orban on in the past, only to see the Fidesz leader storm to a two-thirds majority it needed to mould the constitution, according to BBC News.

One key to his success has been his demolition of the fragmented, old opposition parties. He sees former Socialist leader Ferenc Gyurcsany as no better than Orban, according to BBC News.

Magyar has not been afraid to take on the pro-Orban new outlets that dominate Hungary’s media landscape. Earlier this year, he alleged he had been the target of an attempted ‘Russian-style’ smear campaign involving a sex tape, according to BBC News.

Journalists had been sent a black-and-white surveillance image apparently showing drugs on a table near a bed. The implication was that more footage was to come and Magyar moved to pre-empt it. He admitted having consensual sex with an ex-girlfriend but was adamant he had not touched anything on the table and said he had been lured into a ‘honey-trap’ set up by