Massive crowds rallied in Budapest on Saturday as Hungarian opposition activists came out in force to call for an end to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s 15-year rule.
Magyar told his supporters the “time has come” for his Tisza party, which is leading the prime minister’s Fidesz party in most opinion polls ahead of elections in 2026, Reuters reported.
Speaking to TVP World during the demonstration, Tisza’s deputy chair Zoltán Tarr said that his movement faced significant operational challenges under the current government, which has been accused of undermining press freedom and curbing democracy.
“The biggest challenge is that Orbán’s government is doing everything in its power to somehow control and limit our activities,” Tarr claimed.
“They also go after people who openly say that they want change and say that they would like to belong to the Tisza movement. That is one of the biggest challenges, because obviously everyone is worried about his or her own existence, and this government is very particular in going after people one by one, singling them out.”
He added that state “propaganda” was spreading falsehoods about the opposition.
“They constantly make up stories which are not true but which are able to lead people in a different direction, [they] mislead them by spreading lies about us,” he said.
Magyar and his party are set to launch a popular survey on 12 key economic and political issues to give citizens a voice in the movement’s political platform in the run-up to next year’s vote.
The 43-year-old MEP has also vowed to make Hungary part of a strong Europe, in contrast to Orbán’s Euroscepticism, which has seen him regularly clashing with politicians in Brussels and other European capitals.
Nonetheless, the veteran populist PM and his ideological allies have been buoyed by the return of American President Donald Trump to the White House.
Speaking at a separate rally on Saturday, the 61-year-old Orbán said it was time to eliminate what he called a “shadow army” of NGOs, journalists, judges and politicians receiving payments from abroad.
He has already announced plans to crack down on organizations funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) – which is now being dismantled by Trump – and Budapest-born billionaire George Soros, a supporter of liberal causes.
This week Orbán’s Fidesz party submitted constitutional changes that would permit the expulsion of dual citizens deemed to pose a threat to Hungary’s sovereignty.
While the Tisza movement may be riding high in recent polls, unseating Orbán would be a significant achievement. In the last parliamentary elections in 2022, a united front of anti-Fidesz candidates fell well short of Orbán’s party, which won over half of the popular vote.
