Orban’s new opponent was called a man of war: who is Peter Magyar

Betrayal for the sake of “Respect and Freedom”

This is a chaotic political saga that Hungarians follow like a soap opera, the British The Guardian wrote back in March about everything that suddenly began to happen in Hungarian politics.

Former government official Peter Magyar has become the talk of the country after he publicly broke with the Fidesz party and said he would create a new political party.

Until recently, Magyar was practically unknown. It is now dominating conversations and headlines in the local and global press – and at the very least embarrassing the government of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

A lawyer by profession, Magyar once belonged to the elite circle of Orban’s ruling party. Fidesz came to power following the results of the 2010 Hungarian parliamentary elections. From that moment on, Magyar was appointed an official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A year later, simultaneously with the Hungarian EU Presidency, he also joined the Permanent Representation of Hungary to the European Union.

Since 2015, he began working in the Prime Minister’s Office, and later headed the EU Legal Directorate of the state-owned IFAC (Hungarian Development Bank). From 2019 to 2022, he headed the Student Loan Center.

He was also married to former Hungarian justice minister Judit Varga, who was expected to lead the Fidesz party’s list in June’s European elections. The couple, who have three children, were often portrayed as ideal, exemplary and conservative. However, when Magyar decided to “beautifully” enter the Hungarian political scene, the mother of his children also came under attack.

Magyar released an audio recording in late March that he said proved senior officials conspired to cover up corruption.

The largest protests in Hungary in recent years erupted in early February, when it became known that then-president Katalin Nowak had pardoned a man jailed for covering up child sexual abuse by the director of a state orphanage.

Close allies of Orban, including President and Justice Minister Judit Varga, were forced to resign in the face of public outrage. Varga’s voice was heard on the recordings that became public. She described how other government officials had evidence removed from court records to cover up their roles in corrupt business deals.

After everything that happened, Varga accused Magyar of resorting to domestic violence during their marriage. And all those statements that were heard in the audio recording, she made under duress.

“I said what he wanted to hear so that I could leave as soon as possible. In such a situation, any person can say something that he does not mean, being in a state of intimidation,” Judit Varga wrote on her social network page.

Peter, of course, denied the statements of his ex-wife. But both the audio recording and Varga’s statements are ingrained in public memory. And everyone must evaluate for themselves who is right here.

In just a few weeks, Magyar has gone from government insider to one of the most talked-about people in Hungary, publishing scathing social media posts targeting senior government officials.

Magyar positions himself as a centrist. He focused on domestic issues – fighting corruption, improving health care, modernizing the education system and seeking to unify the deeply polarized Hungarian society.

Already on April 6, tens of thousands of people took to the streets in the center of Budapest to protest against the Orban government. The only organizer of this protest was Peter Magyar. He addressed the crowd, announcing the creation of a new political community aimed at uniting both conservative and liberal Hungarians disillusioned with Orbán’s rule and a fragmented, ineffective political opposition.

“Step by step, brick by brick, we are regaining our homeland and building a new country, a sovereign, modern, European Hungary,” the 43-year-old hot-blooded Hungarian politician shouted into the crowd.

On April 11, Magyar announced that his application for registration in the European Parliament and municipal elections had been approved. Contrary to his promises, he was still unable to register a new organization because he entered the race too close to the time of the European elections. Instead, everyone will be able to see him on the lists on June 9 as part of the already existing, but practically unknown, Respect and Freedom party.

Very vague chances of success

Although Peter Magyar entered the information and political field with pathos, his real chances of somehow shaking Orban’s positions are very uncertain. The Hungarian government, writes Al Jazeera, fired Magyar as an opportunist seeking to build a new career after his divorce from Varga and his loss of positions in several state-owned companies. However, on the eve of the European Parliament elections, Magyar, albeit modestly, is still complicating the situation for Orban.

According to the Median opinion poll published by the news weekly HVG in mid-March, 68% of voters had heard of Magyar’s entry into the political scene, 13% of whom said they were likely to support his party.

But much more interesting is the analysis of the Budapest research center Nezopont. Support for Fidesz, according to the center, has remained unchanged since February (about 47% support). But the emergence of Peter Magyar divided left-wing voters.

According to Nezopont’s estimates, Magyar’s future party can gain the same percentage of support as the “Democratic Coalition” in company with the “Hungarian Socialist Party” and “Dialogue for Hungary” (this coalition also has 13% of support) and the comic “Hungarian Party of Two-Tailed Dogs” “(she has 11% support).

Having studied the impact of the new player on political competition in Hungary, Nezopont concludes: “The situation is clear. Although Magyar is trying to position his entity as a centrist party, he has failed to win over supporters of the ruling parties. Rather, its supporters come from existing voters of left-wing parties.”

Hypothetically, according to Nezopont’s analysis, Fidesz-CDPP will still win 47% of the votes in the European Parliament elections. While the past two months have not been kind to the ruling parties, the increasingly intense upcoming election campaign could mobilize more right-wing supporters.

Magyar as “the path to war”

The English-language Hungarian newspaper The Budapest Times quotes the Secretary of State for Bilateral Cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and External Economic Relations of Hungary, Tamás Menczer, who described Peter Magyar as a new politician of the dollar left, and the left, according to him, is ready to drag Hungary into war.

Menzer compared Magyar to Peter Marki-Zai. He advocates the normalization of relations with the European Union, supports Hungary’s transition to the euro, and generally adheres to moderate conservative views. During the primaries of candidates from the united opposition to participate in the upcoming parliamentary elections in 2022, Marki-Zai promised to fight laws adopted on the initiative of Viktor Orbán and against corruption. He attracted young people to his side.

“Let us never forget that the remaining dollar will destroy the peace and security of Hungary, they will drag us into war, let in migrants and allow us to be bombarded with gender propaganda,” Menczer said.

He added that the situation is now “more serious than ever before… because what we see in the world today is preparation for war”: “Pro-war people are preparing for war, and it could easily develop into a world war.” . The left wing will send weapons and Hungarian soldiers there, as they have clearly stated. They will drag us into a destructive war because those who finance them expect this.”

Be that as it may, the party is registered, and Peter Magyar has planned to begin an election tour around the country. He planned to visit six to eight cities a day, he told Reuters: “There is still a lot of work to be done. We’re kind of a repair company.” But the main thing is that this repair does not cost Hungary a pretty penny.