Péter Magyar Can Only Debate with a Cardboard Orbán (199 Days Until the Election)

This week’s article covers the following topics:

• At a party rally, Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz tried to dazzle its supporters with a Hollywood-style show.
• Fidesz’s message: we are strong, and we will not allow great powers to dictate to us as they did in Trianon and Paris.
• The suicide of a police chief highlighted the dangers of propaganda.
• The government also had to explain itself over sexual abuse scandals in children’s homes.
• Meanwhile, Péter Magyar tours Hungary with a life-size cardboard cutout of Orbán.

A Gigantic Show in Budapest

In recent days Viktor Orbán has done everything to prove that he still sets the pace in Hungary. At the same time, however, he has been forced to respond to increasingly embarrassing scandals, revealing serious cracks in his regime.

The László Papp Budapest Sports Arena is one of Hungary’s largest venues. In recent years it has hosted global stars such as Iron Maiden and Sting. On Saturday, its 12,500 seats were filled with Fidesz supporters, who witnessed a spectacle that, at least in terms of visuals, could rival those major concerts.

This was the first national gathering of the so-called digital civic circles.

What Are Digital Civic Circles?

In the summer, Orbán announced the creation of digital civic circles, designed to give Fidesz an edge over its opponents in the online political sphere. A similar attempt had existed before: the creation of the Fight Club (details about Fight Club is here.) According to Orbán, however, not everyone wants to “fight” – hence the need for digital civic circles.

Their Historical Precedent

After his most painful electoral defeat in 2002, Orbán organized offline civic circles across Hungary – grassroots activist groups that helped Fidesz with mobilization. Now, their digital version has been launched. Orbán argues that his main political rival, the Tisza Party, has seized the online space from Fidesz.

He claims that 72,000 people have already joined the digital civic circles, and 46,000 the Fighters’ Club – numbers that cannot be independently verified.

Who Performed?

The offline meeting of the digital civic circles was a true Hollywood-style event. In an American fashion, artists, media personalities, academics, and athletes tied to Fidesz took the stage. The main purpose of the event was to demonstrate the enduring strength of the party and its mass support. The highlight, of course, was Orbán’s own speech.

What Did Orbán Say?

In recent months, Orbán has framed nearly every speech around geopolitics, and this was no exception. His central claim: the European Union is endangering Hungary. Western countries, he argued, have taken a wrong path by supporting migration and Ukraine. This, in his view, is why economies such as France’s and Germany’s are struggling.

Hungary, by contrast, “will not have war, will not have migrants, and will not allow Ukraine to join the EU,” he declared.

He stressed that he will not give up Budapest, a city that often leans toward the opposition, and vowed not to let the capital become a “migrant-petting zone, drug den, and LGBTQ paradise.”

Orbán also announced that the next major show of strength will take place on October 23, the anniversary of the 1956 uprising against Soviet occupation. This will be the Peace March (Békemenet), which Fidesz regularly organizes before elections to mobilize its base.

After Orbán’s announcement, opposition leader Péter Magyar declared that he too would stage a demonstration in Budapest on October 23 – billing it as “the largest of all time.”

In his speech, Orbán singled out János Lázár, the minister of transport and construction, whom he called the bravest politician in Fidesz. Lázár’s role within the party has grown steadily in recent months.

Why Is János Lázár Important?

For years, Lázár was mentioned as a potential successor to Orbán. Until 2018, he was one of the government’s key figures and a deputy leader of Fidesz. But in 2018 he received no government position. Independent media wrote of his “exile,” suggesting Orbán considered him too independent and feared for his own power.

Since 2022, however, Lázár’s star has been rising again. He is virtually the only cabinet member who regularly faces the press and answers critical questions.

At the digital civic circles’ meeting, he delivered a speech portraying Orbán as an unchallengeable leader. He also invoked Hungary’s Trianon complex: though the great powers decided in Trianon and Paris that Hungary must remain small and poor, Orbán’s politics, he said, are based on the conviction that “we never accepted this narrow fate, and we never will.”

But before the grand Budapest show, a tragic event in Lázár’s hometown put him in an awkward position.

Propaganda Blamed for Police Chief’s Suicide

On Friday, Zsolt Szabó, the police chief of the city of Hódmezővásárhely, took his own life. The event shook the local community. Opposition mayor Péter Márki-Zay, who was the united opposition’s candidate for prime minister in 2022, immediately linked the suicide to an article published on a local news site.

The portal Promenád24 had run an anonymous smear piece, claiming Szabó neglected his work because of personal issues. Márki-Zay argued that Szabó killed himself because he could not endure this humiliation.

What Was Behind It?

The article was published after Szabó, as the responsible police chief, had authorized a protest outside a luxury mansion connected to Minister János Lázár. Lázár denies ownership, but it emerged that he holds a significant stake in the company that built the estate.

During the protest, messages critical of Lázár were chalked on the road near the mansion. Two were interpreted as threats, including one equating Lázár with recently murdered U.S. Republican activist Charlie Kirk.

The portal that ran the smear piece is linked to Lázár. He has used it as a weapon, even clashing with a fellow Fidesz minister over it. After Szabó’s suicide, the article was deleted. Lázár angrily rejected any attempt to connect him to the tragedy.

How Did the Public React?

On Sunday, actors from an independent theater troupe organized a protest in Budapest calling for a cleaner public discourse and against propaganda and hate campaigns. Szabó’s suicide became one of the central themes – with speakers suggesting propaganda itself may have caused the tragedy. This has not yet been proven, but neither has it been disproven.

Tens of thousands turned out. Although the organizers did not explicitly frame the demonstration as anti-government, the crowd spontaneously began chanting “filthy Fidesz.”

Unusually for Hungary, the police themselves responded: in a Facebook video, their spokesman defended Szabó, citing concrete data that disproved the smear. He noted that Hódmezővásárhely’s police force had ranked among the best in the country in recent years.

Fidesz Also Forced to Respond to Pedophilia Allegations

Lázár was not the only prominent figure caught in scandal. Hungarian society has recently been gripped by a child-protection affair that has reached the parliament itself.

In May, police detained the former director of a Budapest children’s home on Szőlő Street, accusing him of human trafficking and forced labor. Later, a former senior official told Válasz Online that the home also hosted orgies for politicians. He alleged that two high-ranking politicians were involved – one supplied with girls, the other with boys. No names were given.

Another scandal soon surfaced: in a children’s home in Ózd, city in eastern Hungary, allegations of sexual abuse emerged, including references to a certain “Uncle Zsolt.”

Who Is Uncle Zsolt?

At Monday’s opening of the autumn parliamentary session, opposition MPs raised the children’s home on Szőlő Street case and proposed a parliamentary inquiry. Some linked it to the Ózd case and directly challenged Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén to say whether he was the “Uncle Zsolt” in question.

Semjén, who sits next to Orbán in parliament, reacted furiously. In an indignant speech, he denied any connection, while conflating child protection issues with LGBTQ+ rights – although no one had accused him of such a link. On social media, many pointed out how uncomfortably Orbán shifted in his seat during Semjén’s rant. Even Antal Rogán, Orbán’s powerful propaganda chief, withheld applause.

Justice Minister Bence Tuzson quickly released a report, saying investigators had found no political links, instead suspecting an orchestrated campaign against the government. According to Péter Magyar, however, the report was a sham, designed only to distract from the scandal.

Péter Magyar Tours the Country with a Cardboard Orbán

Hungary last held a live election debate between prime ministerial candidates in 2006. Since then, Viktor Orbán has never faced an opponent on stage. That may be because of the traumatic memory of that debate, in which Ferenc Gyurcsány, then leader of the Socialist Party, humiliated him – first in the studio, then at the ballot box. Gyurcsány has since left frontline politics, but Orbán still refuses to debate.

What Do Voters Want?

According to a new poll by the 21 Research Center, 56 percent of Hungarian voters want to see a debate between Orbán and Magyar. Among Tisza Party supporters, 86 percent are in favor – but even one-third of Fidesz voters agree.

What Does Péter Magyar Want?

For months, the Tisza leader has demanded that Orbán debate him. Orbán’s reply is usually that Magyar is merely “Brussels’ puppet” and that he prefers to debate with Magyar’s “masters.”

Magyar’s response was creative: he had a life-size cardboard cutout of Orbán made, which he places next to him at rallies across the country.

Sometimes he debates the cardboard figure as if it were real. “Worse than a lying, corrupt and arrogant prime minister,” Magyar told his supporters, “is a lying, corrupt, arrogant and cowardly one.”

Péter Magyar with cardboard Orbán. Photo – Péter Magyar’s Facebook page

English version generated using AI translation and revised by the author.