BUDAPEST, Hungary — Few leaders have done more than Hungary’s Viktor Orbán to shape the global right-wing populism that informed President Donald Trump’s MAGA project.
On Sunday, Orbán faces the biggest challenge of his 16-year authoritarian rule as Hungary goes to the polls for a parliamentary election. There were early signs of record turnout hours after polls opened, according to the National Election Office.
It has been a febrile campaign, with allegations of “false flag” operations, wiretapping and even an alleged sex tape plot.
Usually, an election would pose little risk for Orbán. The leader goes into Sunday’s vote as the great survivor on Europe’s political stage, holding power since 2010 thanks to four back-to-back victories, each time gradually increasing his control over the judiciary and media. European Union lawmakers and many Western watchdogs no longer consider his country a full democracy.
This time, however, things are different: He trails in most polls, with Vice President JD Vance flying to Budapest this week in an attempt to reverse his ally’s ailing electoral forecast. Russian President Vladimir Putin has also voiced support for Orbán, who has frequently stood as the lone dissenting voice among E.U. leaders in opposing sanctions on Russia and advocating for warmer relations with Moscow.
Leading the polls is Peter Magyar, a former member of Orbán’s Fidesz party who now leads his own center-right party, Tisza (a portmanteau of “respect” and “freedom” in Hungarian).
A Publicus poll published Friday found Tisza at 52% support and Fidesz at 39% among decided voters, with a quarter of Hungarians undecided. Government-aligned pollsters have been kinder to the incumbent. Alapjogokért Központ, a Christian-conservative think tank that co-organizes the now-annual CPAC Hungary events, had Orbán leading 50%-42% in late March.
Compounding the uncertainty is a redrawing of Hungary’s political map in favor of Orbán’s party, and the almost half a million ethnic Hungarians who are eligible to vote from neighboring Romania and Serbia.
As in previous Hungarian elections, watchdogs have raised concerns that the contest may be free but not fair. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe said in a report last month that interlocutors had raised concerns about a lack of separation between the state and the ruling party’s campaign, as well as fears that broad powers under the ongoing state of emergency in Hungary could be misused during the election.
Magyar has described the vote as a “referendum” on Hungary’s place in the world: a choice between Orbán’s self-described “illiberal” path allied with Putin, and reintegration with the E.U. and the West.
Casting his vote on Sunday, Magyar told reporters that the election was “a choice between East or West, propaganda or honest public discourse, corruption or clean public life.”
Speaking to reporters before casting his own vote, Orbán, 62, said the campaign had been “a great national moment on our side,” adding: “I’m here to win.”
He is no liberal, but rather a moderate conservative figure who has seized on Hungarians’ dissatisfaction with rising living costs, corruption and crumbling public services.
Orbán’s pitch has largely centered around Russia’s war in neighboring Ukraine. He has singled out Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for frequent attacks, echoing his earlier campaigns that heavily targeted the political influence of George Soros, the Jewish Hungarian American billionaire philanthropist — a tactic that has drawn accusations of antisemitism and the fueling of conspiracy theories.
In the run-up to the vote, Orbán accused Ukraine of sabotaging a key oil pipeline, while Hungarian authorities seized a shipment of cash from a Ukrainian bank.
The Hungarian leader says that the war should be finished as quickly as possible, not prolonged by further Western support for Ukraine. He argues this is about Hungary’s border security and energy independence, but opponents say it has more to do with pleasing his friends in the Kremlin.
The rest of Orbán’s pitch is similar to the playbook he has deployed previously, painting the vote as an existential struggle against liberal values, immigration and what he calls “gender ideology,” having already imposed a ban on Pride marches and LGBTQ events that provoked international condemnation.
“We must save Western civilization,” he told a rally Tuesday alongside Vance. “To do this, we must fight the progressives nestled in Brussels, we must end the Russian-Ukrainian war, and we must solve the energy crisis.”
In Budapest ahead of the vote, people were divided on whether Orbán’s long political rule could really come to an end.
“A lot of people are bored of the Orbán system — the last 15 years has been enough,” said Mate Khoor, 46, a hotel owner and Fidesz party member from the small village of Csór who was in the crowd at the Orbán-Vance rally. “But Orbán is strong and the party is strong,” he said. “I think it can be a big win. I don’t think Peter Magyar will win this election.”
More hopeful about Magyar’s chances is Anna Fetter, 27, who has just moved back to Hungary after 10 years in the United States. She said that it felt “really daunting and unwelcoming to live” in the U.S., citing Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and raids by ICE.
She was one of a handful of protesters outside the Orbán-Vance news conference in the heart of Budapest. Now back in her homeland, she hopes that Trump’s allies will be outvoted this Sunday, adding: “I am a supporter of change.”
