When Peter Magyar arrived in Tapiobicske, a sleepy village outside of Budapest, on May 16, dozens of people gathered in the main square to greet him. Some residents gave him flowers, boxes of pastries, or homemade pálinka, a brandy made from fruit. Others waved at him from their windows and gardens, and drivers passing by shouted encouraging words.

“In 11 months, we will be living in a completely different country, a humane Hungary,” Magyar shouted in the square. The small crowd erupted in cheers.

It was the third day of Magyar’s week-and-a-half-long walk from Budapest to Oradea, a Romanian town with a large Hungarian population. He had embarked on the 185-mile journey, entirely on foot, in an effort to connect with voters and raise support ahead of Hungary’s parliamentary election slated for April 2026, even if that meant earning a few blisters along the way.

“We are taking the message of love to Hungarians outside of our borders, because we believe that all Hungarians are one, whether they live in Hungary, in the Carpathian basin, or elsewhere in the world,” Magyar explained. “There’s no right or left wing, only Hungary.”

With his campaign for unity, the center-right, pro-Europe Magyar has risen to become the most popular politician in Hungary in just one year, according to independent polls—surpassing strongman Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the leader of the Fidesz party who has ruled the country for 15 years.

Before he became the leader of the Hungarian opposition, Magyar (whose name means “Hungarian”) was a Fidesz insider employed by state-owned companies. But after breaking with the party in 2024, the 44-year-old lawyer is now gearing up for a decisive 2026 election.

A lot is on the line for the Central European country of 9.6 million people. Orban’s far-right government has forged close relationships with Russia and China, built a corrupt economic elite, and cracked down on civil society and the press. Whether Orban will hold a fair election against Magyar, and let go of power if he loses, may determine the future of democracy in Hungary.

“So far, it’s been an uphill battle … everyone in Hungary knows that,” Magyar told Foreign Policy. “We have to be better and give our 130 percent.”

Magyar holds up a Hungarian flag. Behind him is a row of people cheering and also waving flags in the air, and flags held by a crowd in front of him are visible in the foreground.

Magyar holds the Hungarian flag at a campaign rally at Budapest’s Heroes’ Square on June 8, 2024. Janos Kummer via Getty Images

Magyar fashions himself as a born politician. He grew up in Budapest’s genteel District V, near the Hungarian Parliament, in a family of public figures. His grandfather, Pal Eross, was a Supreme Court judge during the socialist era and a beloved television personality; his great-uncle, Ferenc Madl, was Hungary’s third president.

Magyar was studying at Budapest’s Pazmany Peter Catholic University during Orban’s first term, which began in 1998. After Orban lost to the Socialist Party in 2002, the institute became a refuge to former Fidesz officials, remembers Sandor Laszlo Esik, a lawyer and author of a popular Substack on Hungarian politics, who was in the year below Magyar at Pazmany. A young Fidesz elite formed at the university, and at the time, “If you threw a stone on campus, odds were it’d land on a Fidesz minister,” Esik said.

After Magyar and his close friend Gergely Gulyas, now a senior Fidesz politician, graduated in 2004, they joined the party together. Two years later, when Fidesz organized widespread protests against the ruling Hungarian Socialist Party, Magyar joined an association providing free legal aid to those injured by the police.

The protests helped pave the way for Fidesz’s return to power in 2010. Shortly before the election, Magyar moved with his family to Brussels, when his wife and fellow Fidesz member Judit Varga was hired to work as an assistant to Hungarian politician Janos Ader in the European Parliament. Magyar stayed at home with their child and later worked as a diplomat overseeing relations between the Orban government and the EU.

The couple returned to Hungary in 2018, shortly before Orban tapped Varga as his justice minister. During Varga’s tenure, Magyar was a largely unknown figure in Fidesz politics, though he was appointed to leadership positions in the government-owned Hungarian Development Bank and Student Loan Centre. With their three children occasionally appearing on Varga’s Facebook, the couple were held up as an ideal family by Orban’s pro-natalist government, until they announced their divorce in 2023.

Varga was poised to lead Fidesz in the 2024 European Parliament election, but in February 2024, she stepped down from politics after independent Hungarian outlet 444 revealed that as justice minister, she had signed the presidential pardon of a man accused of covering up sexual abuse in a state-run orphanage.

Shortly after Varga’s retreat from politics, Péter Magyar announced his departure from state-owned companies, accusing Fidesz of using his ex-wife—the only woman in Orban’s cabinet—as a scapegoat. “I do not…want to be part of a system in which the real responsible parties hide behind women’s skirts,” he wrote on Facebook.

The next day, in an interview on the independent YouTube channel Partizan, Magyar voiced sharp criticism of the Fidesz government, denouncing corruption within the party and accusing officials of spying on journalists.

Soon, he joined the little-known Respect and Freedom Party, or Tisza, founded by a former Fidesz politician in 2020 to bring together Hungarians disappointed by both the right and the left. In June, just four months after Magyar left Fidesz, Tisza received nearly a third of Hungary’s votes at the European Parliament election, with Magyar leading the party’s delegation in Brussels. Fidesz secured 45 percent of the vote, down from 52 percent in 2019.

The election results were a strong indicator of Magyar’s rising popularity. And since then, his voter base has grown even larger. Although government–affiliated institutions, such as the Center for Fundamental Rights and Nezopont Institute, still predict a strong lead for Fidesz, independent pollsters have found that Tisza is consistently polling above the ruling party. An October poll conducted by Budapest-based think tank 21 Research Center, for instance, puts Tisza 7 percentage points ahead of Fidesz. This would translate to approximately 500,000 more votes for Tisza than for Fidesz in the general election—“the largest advance ever recorded” against Fidesz, said Daniel Rona, a political scientist and director of 21 Research.

Earlier this month, for a celebration held on the anniversary of the crushed 1956 revolution against the Soviet rule, Magyar drew 170,000 people to the streets of Budapest—roughly twice as many as Orban, who held a “peace march” the same day, independent analysts said. Fidesz claimed that the government’s march drew a much larger crowd than Tisza’s, but it gave no proof or details.

Magyar’s popularity is fueled by Hungary’s worsening economic situation and cost-of-living crisis, Rona said. Between 2022 and 2024, the country experienced one of the highest inflation rates in the EU. Although the Fidesz government has attempted to curb inflation with a profit margin freeze on food and household items, it has not been able to make up for the billions of euros in aid that the EU has frozen since 2021 over rule-of-law concerns.

“The economic crisis is affecting Fidesz voters too,” said Peter Marki-Zay, the conservative mayor of the city of Hodmezovasarhely, who founded the Everybody’s Hungary People’s Party, a center-right opposition party.

In Hungary’s last general election in 2022, Marki-Zay faced off against Orban as the joint opposition’s candidate. The coalition’s six parties, ranging from right-wing to liberal, received only 28 percent of parliamentary seats, while the conservative Fidesz-Christian Democratic People’s Party coalition secured a two-thirds majority.

Victor Orban pushing aside a flap of a white polling station tent as he exits, holding a white piece of paper in his other hand.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban exits a polling booth in Budapest on June 9, 2024, during the European and local elections.Attila Kisbenedek/AFP via Getty images

Tisza has syphoned voters from opposition parties on all sides, prompting some other opposition politicians, like Marki-Zay, to voice their support for Magyar. “I’m interested in seeing someone replace the most corrupt and dictatorial government in Hungarian history—and hold it accountable,” Marki-Zay said. “Magyar and Tisza have the best chance of winning a parliamentary majority to bring about the changes needed.”

Magyar has pledged to protect Hungary from illegal migration and continue Fidesz’s family-support program, which offers various loans and tax reductions for large families. But Tisza’s campaign has also promised to invest in social housing, education, and healthcare, which Fidesz has largely neglected; promote closer ties to the EU; reinstate a tax scheme for freelancers; and restore academic and press freedom. Carefully maneuvering between conservative and liberal values, he has stayed away from divisive topics, such as LGBTQ+ rights, and primarily advocated unity. He has also promised to set up a National Bureau of Asset Protection and Recovery to retrieve funds that he claims the government has “stolen.”

Unlike Orban’s previous contenders, Magyar has managed to gain popularity in rural areas and among right-leaning voters. He has rallied support by touring the country multiple times, including with his walk this past May.

Magyar, dressed in athletic wear, poses for a selfie with a man as they walk amid a crowd of people down a road. Magyar and other walk with Hungarian flags.

Magyar walks with supporters in Budapest during a protest walk from Budapest to Oradea, Romania, on May 14.Ference Isza/AFP via Getty Images

On the third day of that walk, a few dozen Hungarians accompanied Magyar as he marched toward Tapiobicske.

Daniel Mate, a 28-year-old factory worker, took the day off work to join for this leg of the journey. He said he thought the peaceful walk was a good way to respond to Fidesz’s aggressive rhetoric. Other supporters included Gabriella Dencsne, a 68-year-old former teacher who said she was drawn to Tisza’s promise to fund education, and a couple, both 74, who traveled from Budapest to show their support, despite health problems. (The couple preferred to remain anonymous to avoid criticism in their community.) Although the couple had voted for the left wing their entire lives, they agreed that Tisza was Hungary’s best chance for change.

“I was born in a dictatorship. I don’t want to die in one as well,” said a 73-year-old man who asked to remain anonymous to protect his privacy. He was waiting for Magyar in a village square that the group passed through, sitting at a table set with snacks and mineral water. All of the food and accommodations for Magyar’s walk were provided by local voters. Tisza, with its lean campaign budget, relies heavily on goodwill and coordination from its supporters.

“We are a streamlined organization made of young, patriotic people,” Magyar told Foreign Policy during the walk. He likened his supporters to the Hungarians who fought against a much larger Ottoman military in the 16th century. “Among us are young and old people, living in Budapest, the rural areas, in the motherland or abroad—who are fighting for their homeland and for the future of their children and grandchildren.”

In contrast, the government “does not work for the country,” he said. “They just want to maintain their stolen wealth and power.”

Peter Magyar stands in a crowd of people and waves. He wears a suit and bears a Hungarian flag on one shoulder. The Hungarian Parliament Building, illuminated at night, is in the background.

Magyar among his supporters at a demonstration he organized in Budapest on March 26, 2024.Janos Kummer via Getty Images

Despite widespread support, Magyar faces an uphill battle against Fidesz. Over 15 consecutive years in power, Orban has tightened his hold on the country by reorganizing voting districts in his regime’s favor, exercising greater control over state institutions and the media, and hollowing out the country’s judiciary. These tactics, among others, have resulted in an electoral system that international institutions have branded unfair.

Magyar also lacks the polish of a seasoned politician. In the first months of his campaign, he got into a much-publicized fight in a nightclub, which he claims was started by a provocateur hired by Fidesz. Later, he stormed out of a TV interview amid a dispute over independent channel ATV’s coverage of Tisza. These episodes proved fertile ground for the Fidesz-controlled media’s smear campaigns, which have portrayed Magyar as a narcissist psychopath and a crook whose team is made up of convicted criminals.

Government-friendly outlets have also consistently depicted Magyar as a violent husband after Varga, his ex-wife, accused him last year of domestic abuse during their marriage. Magyar has consistently denied these claims, arguing that Varga is being used for government propaganda. However, he has admitted that the couple “said and wrote nice and not-so-nice things to each other” over the course of their relationship. A police report from 2020, which has been verified and reported on by independent Hungarian outlets, recorded fierce fighting during their marriage, with an officer noting that Varga could be heard saying, “Let me go.”

Veronika Kovesdi, a media researcher at the ELTE Centre for Social Sciences, believes that “these campaigns have little to no effect on Magyar’s voters.” Kovesdi thinks that this is partly due to Magyar’s savvy use of social media, where he shares candid photos from his private life and news of the party, advertises events, and fights Fidesz politicians in the comments. His consistent presence across platforms, Kovesdi noted, allows him to shape the narrative around his candidacy.

In April, Magyar alleged that ahead of the 2026 election, Fidesz will try to incriminate him through tactics such as creating artificial intelligence-generated sex videos of him or planting drugs in his home. This has not yet happened, but Rona, the director of 21 Research, said that he “wouldn’t rule out the possibility” that Fidesz will seek to prevent Magyar from running. For now, however, the obstacles he faces are bureaucratic.

“There is a real possibility of a change in government,” Rona said. “But I think it’s too soon to declare Fidesz finished. They hold all the cards, resources, and power. [Orban] has a lot of options, and there’s a lot of time until the election.”

Nevertheless, Magyar believes he is going to win. “It’s like preparing for the Olympics. If one doesn’t aim to win a gold medal, he shouldn’t even start,” he said.

In the next six months, he plans to win over former Fidesz voters or members who, like himself, are disappointed in the government. “Obviously, it’s a long process, to say that after 20 or more years that you won’t vote for them. It was one for me too,” he said. “But it’s important that people know we are not angry at them, we are fighting for them too. We will represent everyone—those who vote for Fidesz or for other parties, or don’t vote at all.”

“I believe we are a peaceful nation,” he said, gesturing to the people around him on the walk. “For most, this is more appealing than the hate and division Fidesz stands for.”