Hungary: Scandal, fear and hope ahead of vote

Peter Magyar is still only Hungary's opposition leader but he's already talking as though he was elected prime minister, listing the new government's top domestic and foreign policy priorities and saying he wants to reach out to those who don't vote for him. Magyar, a 42-year-old lawyer and ex-diplomat who has been the face of the opposition in Hungary for the past two years, is not short of self-confidence. But during the course of this campaign and, above all, over the past few weeks, Magyar, who heads the center-right Tisza party, seems to have undergone a transformation — he acts as if he has already won Hungary's April 12 vote and is now overseeing the transfer of power. Magyar's attitude reflects the mood of many in Hungary. Dissatisfaction with current Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his governance has been growing for some time. Now there seems to be a sense of optimism in anticipation of fundamental change but also one of extreme unease at Orban's own campaign, which presents a dark, parallel version of Hungary. Recent opinion polls show many voters fear Orban may cancel the election at the last minute or fake the results. Magyar appears confident of victory during his campaign appearancesImage: Bela Szandelszky/AP Photo/picture alliance Massive voter shift Political scientist and sociologist Laszlo Keri, who taught a young Orban when he was studying law, sees parallels between today and the events of 1989 and 1990. He recently told the Hungarian daily newspaper Uj Szo that he expects turnout on Sunday to rival that of the first free parliamentary elections in March 1990. At the same time, Keri says it is "also an election that could influence Europe's future, at a moment when Europe is trying to find its way." Election researchers Attila Juhasz and Robert Laszlo of the Budapest-based policy research institute Political Capital say they have seen a shift "from a safe election to an unsafe election" during the final phase of the campaign, in a riff on Orban and his Fidesz party's slogan, "the safe choice." Indeed the last few weeks have seen Orban and his party failing to dominate. As the vote nears, Orban, his cabinet and his party Fidesz have been rocked by major scandals. The revelations seem to have driven away droves of undecided voters. Majority of Hungarians want a fresh start Most independent polling and research outfits are projecting a clear victory for Magyar and Tisza. One poll even projected a two-thirds majority. Such polling is to be viewed with caution though as it tends to underrepresent voters from some parts of the country. Still they do document one thing: A clear majority of voters wants to see the Orban regime end and they are pinning their hopes on a fresh start for Hungary — politically, socially and economically. Perhaps the biggest shift in voter sentiment was triggered by an interview given by Bence Szabo, a former criminal investigator whose department, which is normally tasked with fighting online child pornography, was commandeered by the Orban regime for a secret intelligence operation aimed at targeting Tisza and paralyzing the party ahead of the vote. Looking at nationwide reactions to the interview, it seems that Szabo — a criminal investigator who was forced to go public after being ignored by his superiors — is a figure that hundreds of thousands of Hungarians can identify with. This screenshot of a Facebook video shows Orban's son Gaspar (center) on a visit to ChadImage: Cnarr-Tchad/Facebook Buying votes and papering over real threats Another revelation about conditions in Hungary's army, which were described as somewhere between precarious and catastrophic, as the government prepared to send soldiers off on an expensive mission to the central African nation of Chad, has similarly struck a nerve. The mission was apparently only put together because Orban's son Gaspar had dreamed up a bizarre, religiously-motivated vision for "saving Africa." Much has been written about the trajectory of the younger Orban's life, from his days in Hungarian professional soccer and his evangelical Christian awakening in Uganda, to his time at the elite UK military academy at Sandhurst. Numerous other scandals have come out over past weeks. The documentary film "The Price of the Vote," was uploaded to YouTube in late March, and claims that Orban's Fidesz party has spent several years buying the votes of drug addicts, Roma and poor Hungarians. In early February, news broke that the Orban government knew that a Samsung battery factory north of Budapest had been exposing employees to extremely dangerous working conditions as well as polluting nearby by soil and water yet did nothing about it. Instead the regime simply tried to cover up the problem. Hungarian voters also learned about the luxurious renovation of the National Bank building in Budapest. Among the details that enraged citizens was news that Gyorgy Matolcsy, the former chairman of the National Bank and once Orban's most important financial advisor, had overseen the installation of his own private bathroom during renovations and had insisted on having a golden toilet brush. His family has since apparently left for Dubai. Sucking up to the Kremlin Ultimately the image of elites who shamelessly enrich themselves while Hungarian society and the environment suffer — all while accusing their critics of being anti-Hungarian — has established itself in the country. Over the past few days, read outs and audio from phone calls between Orban, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto and Kremlin leadership were made public by Hungarian and international media outlets. The gist of the calls documented an extreme obsequiousness to Russia from these supposedly patriotic Hungarians, with Orban going so far as to compare himself to a little mouse that wants to help a powerful lion — that's Russian President Vladimir Putin — in any way he can. Orban and his party have attempted to explain the situation away as part of a plan to shield Hungary from Ukrainian espionage, military attacks and possible government coups. For months, Orban's entire reelection campaign has focused on defending the country against "Ukrainian and EU meddling." Orban has claimed the election is about "whether I run the next Hungarian government or [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy does." Hungary's Orban deploys AI-made scare ads in close electionTo view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video The campaign has also seen the wide-scale deployment of generative artificial intelligence to create videos with fake content. It may well be the first modern European election campaign to attempt to use such tricks. The Hungarian news portal Telex summed up the situation like this: "At the end of the campaign, one question remains — is fear more powerful than hope?" This article was originally published in German.