Hungary’s opposition leads by double digits. The system Orbán built may yet save him.
Péter Magyar (pictured above, in the white shirt) has not always been the leader of Hungary’s opposition. A former member of Hungary’s governing party Fidesz and the ex-husband of former justice minister Judit Varga, Magyar first came to nationwide attention when he publicly announced his resignation from all government-related positions amidst a presidential pardon scandal in February 2024. A month later, he was drawing tens of thousands to Budapest’s streets. A year after that, the new party he founded and leads, Tisza, held a 12-point lead over Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz, becoming the biggest threat to Orbán’s grip on power since he swept back into office in 2010.
On April 12, Hungarians will next go to the polls in an election that will matter well beyond Budapest. The current polling picture is, to put it charitably, contested. Independent surveys have been fairly consistent: Medián, one of Hungary’s most established research institutes, gave Tisza a 20-point lead among certain voters (55 per cent to 35 per cent) in a late-February survey. The IDEA institute and 21 Research Centre have shown similar patterns. The most recent 21 Research Centre poll, conducted in early March, put Tisza 14 points ahead among decided voters, a slight narrowing from January but still a gulf. On the prediction market Polymarket, Magyar’s chances of winning stood at 57 per cent, against 39 per cent for Orbán, until the Hungarian authorities blocked access to the platform on suspicion of illegal gambling.
Fidesz-aligned pollsters, meanwhile, find the exact opposite: Nézőpont claims Fidesz will take 45 per cent to Tisza’s 40. Tamás Lánczi, who runs the government’s Sovereignty Protection Office, has accused five independent pollsters of “abusing” public opinion research and carrying out “foreign assignments”. This, in its own way, is also data.
The system’s insurance
Raw numbers, though, are only half the story. Hungary’s parliament has 199 seats, of which 106 are elected by first-past-the-post voting in single-member constituencies, a share raised from 46 per cent in Orbán’s 2011 electoral reform. Those districts were drawn, as Kim Lane Scheppele of Princeton has argued, to pack opposition-leaning urban voters into fewer seats while spreading Fidesz’s rural base across many. According to Publicus pollster András Pulai, Tisza needs to win by five to six percentage points in the national vote simply to secure a parliamentary majority. Win by less and Orbán could remain prime minister despite losing the popular vote.
In December 2024, Fidesz further reduced the number of Budapest constituencies from 18 to 16, adding two seats in surrounding Pest County, areas where the governing party is stronger. The opposition called it gerrymandering. Fidesz said demographic change justified it. These two interpretations are not, in practice, mutually exclusive.
There is also what might be called the hidden machinery. Gábor Kubatov, Fidesz’s organisational chief, has built a voter database enabling highly targeted mobilisation of supporters, an asset with no equivalent on the opposition side. The judiciary, state audit commission, constitutional court and much of the media landscape have, over 15 years, been brought within Fidesz’s orbit. Pensioners, large families and other core Fidesz constituencies have been given extra payments and tax breaks. And Hungarian citizens abroad, who vote only on party lists and overwhelmingly back Fidesz, provide an additional structural cushion.
By-elections offer a corrective to polling optimism. Fidesz has won eight consecutive by-elections since Tisza entered the political scene in 2024, each time defeating candidates aligned with Magyar’s party, each time in constituencies where rural networks and incumbency advantages remain formidable. Tisza has chosen not to contest these races, citing resource constraints. The problem, as critics have noted, is that winning a national election in Hungary without performing well in provincial single-member seats is effectively impossible.
What Tisza actually stands for
Magyar, for his part, has kept the message deliberately broad. Tisza’s manifesto commits to rebuilding trust with EU and NATO allies, restoring rule of law as a means to unlock the €18 billion in EU funds currently frozen over Hungary’s governance record, and joining the eurozone by 2030. On corruption—the issue that launched Magyar into politics—the message is unambiguous. On foreign policy, less so.
Tisza opposes Ukraine’s accelerated EU accession and would put the question to a binding national referendum. Magyar’s proposed timeline for ending Hungarian dependence on Russian energy stretches to 2035, well behind Brussels’s 2027 target. Tisza MEPs in Brussels have aligned with Fidesz in roughly 49 per cent of votes, not a figure designed to warm hearts in Warsaw or Tallinn (or, for that matter, Kyiv).
Brussels is praying for Magyar nonetheless, and not quietly. Politico reported a five-point EU roadmap to admit Ukraine by 2027, one chapter of which was simply titled “waiting for Orbán’s departure”. The EU establishment wants Orbán gone. Tisza says it will act in Hungary’s interests.
A different map
A Magyar government would almost certainly, however, end Hungary’s role as Moscow’s most reliable obstacle within the EU. Tisza has spoken of repairing relations with Poland, given that the Warsaw-Budapest axis collapsed after Russia’s 2022 invasion, and reviving the Visegrád Group as a meaningful forum. The recovery of frozen EU funds alone would represent a material shift in how Hungary operates.
What would not change quickly is the underlying architecture. Fidesz’s appointees control the presidency, state audit commission, constitutional court, and universities. A narrow Tisza majority would inherit a state built specifically to outlast any government change. Orbán has said as much, openly. A narrow loss, in his own calculations, would likely mean four years of attrition.
Sixteen years is a long time to build a system. It is also, for voters, a long time to wait for something different. The polls point one way. The plumbing points another. On April 12, Hungary will find out which one matters more.
Photo: Dreamstime.