{"id":42105,"date":"2024-04-07T07:48:36","date_gmt":"2024-04-07T07:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=42105"},"modified":"2024-04-07T07:48:40","modified_gmt":"2024-04-07T07:48:40","slug":"new-challenger-to-viktor-orban-leads-huge-demonstration-in-budapest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2024\/04\/07\/new-challenger-to-viktor-orban-leads-huge-demonstration-in-budapest\/","title":{"rendered":"New challenger to Viktor Orb\u00e1n leads huge demonstration in Budapest"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tens of thousands of Hungarians protested against the country\u2019s leadership on Saturday in one of the biggest demonstrations in years, organised by a former government insider who has shaken up Hungary\u2019s political landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

P\u00e9ter Magyar, a lawyer and former diplomat who used to belong to an elite circle around Hungary\u2019s ruling party, publicly broke with the government in February and is now\u00a0aiming to challenge\u00a0the position of Viktor Orb\u00e1n, the powerful prime minister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the past 14 years, critics have accused Orb\u00e1n of increasingly\u00a0undermining democratic institutions, cosying up to Moscow and Beijing and overseeing a corrupt patronage network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The longtime Hungarian leader, who began his career as an anti-communist liberal, has moved his Fidesz party to the right. He served as prime minister between 1998 and 2002, but since returning to power in 2010, he has taken a more nationalist, il\u00adliberal path, frequently clashing with the EU.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, Magyar \u2013 who was previously married to Hungary\u2019s former justice minister \u2013 is trying to build a new kind of opposition movement. On Saturday afternoon, young people, pensioners and families with children marched through central Budapest and tried to squeeze into the vast square in front of the parliament, with parts of the crowd spilling over to nearby streets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some carried signs bearing the names of their hometowns. Many waved Hungarian flags.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFrom now, nothing will be as it\u2019s been,\u201d Magyar said as he made the case for a European-facing and meritocratic Hungary. \u201cChange has started, which can\u2019t be stopped,\u201d he declared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Addressing the demonstrators, Magyar accused the country\u2019s media and the prosecutor\u2019s office of lacking real independence, laid out allegations of high-level government corruption, and said he would launch a party that would run in the European parliament election in June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"P\u00e9ter<\/a>
P\u00e9ter Magyar, a lawyer and businessman, at the protest on Saturday. Photograph: Bernadett Szab\u00f3\/Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe, Hungarians, are coming together,\u201d he told the crowd, calling for rightwing, leftwing and liberal Hungarians to respect one another and work together to replace the current political elite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Protesters who spoke to the Observer<\/em> said they found Magyar \u2013 who had pitched himself as a centrist figure and had criticised both the government and parts of the opposition \u2013 convincing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Istv\u00e1n, a middle-aged man who had travelled to Budapest from western Hungary, said it was his first anti-government protest. \u201cI think the opposition has been helpless,\u201d he said as he marched toward parliament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI find him credible,\u201d he said of Magyar, adding: \u201cHe was a beneficiary of the system, he gave it up and turned his back on it \u2013 and that shows something.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Magyar\u2019s decision to publicly challenge the government came as Hungary\u2019s president, Katalin Nov\u00e1k,\u00a0resigned\u00a0after it emerged that she had pardoned a man convicted of helping cover up a sexual abuse case at a children\u2019s home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some demonstrators cited the case as part of the reason for their own growing political participation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kitti, a young woman who said she began attending protests after the pardon controversy, said there was a feeling that the traditional opposition \u201cis not really motivated to change this regime\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/a>
Protesters in Kossuth Square, the site of the Hungarian parliament. Photograph: M\u00e1rton M\u00f3nus\/Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The protest itself differed from normal Hungarian opposition demonstrations: music from\u00a0<\/em>a mafia TV show played while images of Hungary\u2019s political elites flashed on a giant screen. There was poetry and singing, along with speeches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0Observers say that while Magyar does appear to be capturing some voters\u2019 attention, it is still unclear what impact his movement will have in the longer term.<\/span>

\u201cThe appearance of P\u00e9ter Magyar was unexpected and visibly caught the government and its communication machine off guard,\u201d said Zsuzsanna V\u00e9gh, a programme officer at the German Marshall Fund.<\/p>

A recent poll by the Budapest-based Republikon Institute found that Magyar\u2019s party, if formally formed, would be the third most popular in the country, with 15% of voters with a party preference backing him.<\/p>

<\/div>
\"P\u00e9ter<\/div>
\u2018The time is here\u2019: the ex-government insider shaking up Hungarian politics<\/div><\/div>
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Read more<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/gu-island><\/figure>

That finding \u201ccan be read first and foremost as a protest vote \u2013 against the regime,\u201d said V\u00e9gh, noting, however, that \u201cif he will be able to cause a lasting headache for Orb\u00e1n is still unclear\u201d.<\/p>

Magyar\u2019s movement has raised hopes among those Hungarians who oppose the prime minister but also distrust the country\u2019s veteran leftwing figures. But some of Orb\u00e1n\u2019s opponents have raised concerns that he could divide the opposition vote.<\/p>

Magyar has also faced controversy over recent claims from his former wife, Judit Varga, that he mistreated her while they were married. Magyar has denied the allegations.<\/p>

Asked if the Hungarian government sees Magyar and his movement as a challenge in the forthcoming European parliament and local elections, Bal\u00e1zs Orb\u00e1n, the prime minister\u2019s political director, said: \u201cSuch characters come and go.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tens of thousands of Hungarians protested against the country\u2019s leadership on Saturday in one of the biggest demonstrations in years, organised by a former government insider who has shaken up Hungary\u2019s political landscape. P\u00e9ter Magyar, a lawyer and former diplomat who used to belong to an elite circle around Hungary\u2019s ruling party, publicly broke with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":42106,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[4791,11261,11264,6263,7556,1451,7960,287,1279,8307,7593,11282,1384,9171,913,2884,8041,911,12328,159,9505,2404,6738,9127,9643,2264,10453,5626,8601,10419,10776,9974,9775,9349,5340,12287,5058,12187,1198,9554,3805,3174,5561,11171,6704,7555,5273,10415,594,5140],"class_list":["post-42105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-abuse","tag-accused","tag-allegations","tag-beijing","tag-budapest","tag-businessman","tag-case","tag-children","tag-circle","tag-communist","tag-controversy","tag-convicted","tag-corruption","tag-crowd","tag-democratic","tag-demonstration","tag-diplomat","tag-election","tag-elites","tag-eu","tag-european","tag-european-parliament","tag-families","tag-february","tag-fund","tag-government","tag-guard","tag-hungary","tag-independence","tag-justice","tag-lawyer","tag-leadership","tag-mafia","tag-married","tag-moscow","tag-movement","tag-music","tag-n","tag-parliament","tag-pensioners","tag-president","tag-prime-minister","tag-protest","tag-protesters","tag-sexual-abuse","tag-viktor-orban","tag-woman","tag-work","tag-who","tag-young"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42105"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42107,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42105\/revisions\/42107"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}