Viktor Orbán’s Hungary turns up the heat on dissidents

In March 2025, for the first time in 15 years, the most popular Hungarian politician was not Prime Minister Viktor Orbán but his implacable opponent Péter Magyar, who rose to prominence only last year. This was according to Median, an independent poll company conducting research for the news outlet HVG.

According to another recent poll, by the Republikon Institute in April 2025, 32% of Hungarians would vote for Magyar’s Tisza party, a 3-point rise since March. In the same period, the governing Fidesz-KDNP gained 1 point and now stands at 28%. Tisza has seen a continuous rise in support since its founding in spring 2024. A particular boost has come in recent weeks, apparently from undecided voters and to a lesser extent from erstwhile supporters of the satirical Two-Tailed Dog Party.

Bedbugs make a spring clean necessary

Unsurprisingly, these developments have thrown the Fidesz government’s otherwise well-oiled propaganda machine into crisis mode. In his speech for Hungary’s independence day on 15 March, Prime Minister Orbán announced his intention to perform a “spring clean”. He also fulminated against "paid-for politicians, judges, civilians, journalists, fake NGOs, political activists”, branding them as “bedbugs” and “chinches”.

Now there has been a new attempt to stigmatize independent media as “foreign agents” and “dollar media”. The outlets concerned include those that subsist on EU-funded grants. In what was obviously a politically oriented document, the government’s Sovereignty Protection Office referenced numerous “reports” of foreign interference in Hungarian internal politics. The general narrative is that the Biden administration, USAID (America’s international aid agency), the Open Society Foundations and other international donors that support independent media constitute one big network whose ultimate goal is to erode Hungary’s independence.

Many of the independent media outlets in Hungary, among them Telex.hu, HVG/EUrologus, 444.hu, Magyar Narancs, Direkt36, and Átlátszó, are in the firing line given their acceptance of grants from USAID, foreign embassies, or the European Commission. In its rhetoric the Fidesz government has gone as far as threatening Hungarian journalists who are dual nationals that they may be denied entry to Hungary.

In mid-May 2025 came the announcement of a bill suspiciously concerned with “transparency of public life”. It threatens to be devastating for the rule of law, liberties, and democracy in Hungary. If passed, the law would authorize the Sovereignty Protection Office to place organizations receiving foreign funding on a blacklist. The scope of the bill suggests that EU grants, too, could be held back if deemed to pose a “threat” to national sovereignty.

Despite this wave of moves against freedoms by the Hungarian government, the Republikon Institute poll has been confirmed by a number of others over the last few months. Péter Magyar’s Tisza party enjoys a lead as the election approaches.

MEPs used as propaganda props

In response, the government and Fidesz are attempting to limit the damage. The populist methods of choice have not changed much. They include scapegoating LGBT+ people, talking down the independent media and threatening it with investigations, tightening up already strict drug laws, tweaking the electoral rules – and mooting new laws that might be used against Péter Magyar and his fellow MEPs.

In Brussels, the 9 Tisza MEPs (affiliated to the conservative European People’s Party) have been highly visible since their election last year. Predictably, this has not been for wholesome reasons, but rather driven by the Orbán government's habit of using EU politicians and institutions as a punching bag in his communications.

Tisza weathers the storm

Amid this hostile PR environment, the Tisza MEP Kinga Kollár said in a TV interview in mid-April that her party is happy that the EU has suspended budget payments to Hungary due the unresolved dispute over the rule of law and corruption.

In an ATV interview, Kollár’s boss Péter Magyar nuanced the MEP’s words: “Tisza MEPs never voted on the Hungarian funding, since the decision to suspend the payments was taken three years ago – the main reason being the Orbán family's corruption on an industrial scale – and the Tisza Party did not even exist then.”

In comparison, Tisza is vocal about its 2026 promise to finally unlock the long-stalled EU money. As things stand, the EU Commission has almost completely frozen payments due to Budapest’s unwillingness to resolve numerous longstanding disputes over the rule of law and corruption.

According to the Republikon Institute poll, the "Kollár incident" did not prove to be a panacea for Fidesz. This was despite the government propaganda machine spending about €90,000 in an effort to make hay of it, according to the fact-checking website Lakmusz.

In its attempt to beat Fidesz, Tisza seems to have chosen a communication strategy that avoids associations with other opposition parties, with their history of failed efforts at coalitions. Relatedly, Tisza shows little interest in values-based messaging when it comes to social issues, minorities, and other sensitive questions. Despite the Fidesz government’s regular and repeated attempts to associate it with the issue, Tisza has steered clear of expressing views on minority rights, a traditionally controversial topic in Hungarian politics.

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Despite the Fidesz government’s regular and repeated attempts to associate it with the issue, Tisza has steered clear of expressing views on minority rights, a traditionally controversial topic in Hungarian politics

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Tisza is also much less willing than its predecessors to take a pro-democracy stance, or engage with matters of freedoms and rights. It claims to be a centre-right pro-EU party, but has made little effort to counter the Fidesz government’s new efforts at oppression.

Nor did Tisza politicians speak up forcefully against the government’s recent move to enshrine in law a ban on LGBT+ Pride events, complete with stiff fines for contraventions. (The initiative is a clear breach of EU law on freedom of association.)

The same was true for the recent strengthening of Hungary’s drug laws, which, according to Drugreporter.net, were already some of the harshest in Europe. Previously, drug users could avoid prosecution by participating in a six-month outpatient addiction-treatment programme. From now on, offenders will only be diverted from the criminal-justice system if they disclose the identity of the person who sold them the illegal substance.

If they reoffend, they lose their eligibility for treatment and will be prosecuted. Tisza politicians have chosen to stay away from topics such as this, thus avoiding the trap set by Fidesz, which wants it to engage with subjects that its propaganda machine knows how to exploit.

Sadly, from a human-rights perspective, the same has happened with the debate over Ukraine’s EU membership. Fidesz has announced that it intends to hold a non-binding referendum asking Hungarian voters whether Ukraine can be allowed to join the European Union. The intention is clearly to weaponize this topic, too, in the run-up to the April 2026 elections. However, a poll commissioned by Tisza as part of the “Nations Voice” initiative found that 58% of respondents support Ukraine’s EU accession. That seems to be another blow for Fidesz.

As Márton Gergely, editor-in-chief of HVG, concludes in a recent opinion article, Tisza’s overall strategy is to stay away from the government’s topics of fetish. This way it aims to put as much daylight as possible between itself and Hungary’s other opposition parties, with their track record of failure at forming a winning coalition.