By Tamas Csonka in Budapest
The Hungarian National Election Committee (NVB) has registered Peter Magyar's Party of Respect and Freedom (TISZA) for the European parliamentary and Hungarian municipal elections scheduled for June 9.
The decision gives the green light for the fast-rising opposition figure to start collecting nominations for participation from April 20 until early May to run in the EP elections.
TISZA, founded in 2021 in the northern Hungarian city of Eger as a centrist grassroots community by two people, was previously little known to the public. It is also the name of a river in Hungary. Magyar had to pick a 'sleeping party' as he had run out of time to register his own before the election.
The ex-husband of former justice minister Judit Varga emerged in public on the day President Katalin Novak resigned by using a YouTube interview, where he unleashed scathing criticisms of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s regime, targeting his most powerful minister, Antal Rogan, in charge of communication and overseeing the intelligence services.
In March, he published a recording of a conversation Judit Varga, at a time when she was his wife and Hungary's justice minister, in which she detailed alleged attempts by government officials, including Rogan, to tamper with evidence in a high-profile corruption case.
A day before Magyar testified at the prosecutor’s office, he told local media that Varga reportedly told him in early 2023 before their divorce, that 'this is a mafia government that you can't get out of'. This bit was not recorded in the conversation taped secretly by Magyar.
To distract public attention from the revelations, government propaganda began a vicious smear campaign on social media. Varga broke her silence but the former justice minister did not say a word about why the former deputy of an orphanage was given clemency in a paedophile case – the scandal which sparked her resignation and that of Novak – but she accused her former husband of physical and verbal abuse in a 90-minute interview with a local celebrity.
In the latest round of character assassination, pro-Orban media accuses Magyar of being financed by foreign powers to overthrow the government.
In early April, an estimated quarter million people took to the streets to the call of Magyar, in what was probably the largest anti-government protest since the collapse of communism. The former lawyer and businessman promised his supporters to take back Hungary 'step by step, brick by brick' and to build a sovereign, modern, European Hungary.
In just two months, Magyar has emerged as a prominent figure in Hungary’s opposition. His sudden entry into politics has disrupted the political establishment, both the opposition parties and the ruling Fidesz establishment. He has clashed with Hungary’s leading opposition party DK, led by Ferenc Gyurcsany, a highly divisive figure among Orban’s critics. Antipathy to Gyurcsany has been a factor in the Orban regime's survival.
Magyar has shaken up the political status quo as he is now polled at 14-15%, just behind DK, which could be enough to secure 2 out of 21 seats at the EP election, held concurrently with local government elections. Their members would join the European People's Party group, the political organisation to which Fidesz belonged for more than two decades before its expulsion.
The former Fidesz insider has built up a strong and dedicated support base in a matter of weeks as many see him as a major rival to Orban, who is experiencing a major crisis after the Fidesz paedophile scandal.
According to pundits, the media onslaught against his fresh rival is aimed at keeping Orban's 2mn core base, which is enough to win elections with a two-thirds majority in the gerrymandered election system Fidesz has established.
Magyar is set to start a country-wide campaign tour this week, planning to visit six to eight towns a day, he told local media. Opposition parties have been largely ineffective in garnering support in rural areas, the stronghold of the ruling party. According to Magyar and his team, supporters from more than 2,000 out of 3,200 settlements showed up in the April 6 mass demonstration.
