Trojan horse: The Shape-Shifting Politics of Péter Magyar

How do you win electorally having lost culturally? For Brussels, when it came to Hungary, that was the challenge. For years, now-former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán proved quite the maverick—at the helm of a tiny, landlocked country of just 10 million people, he had succeeded in not just holding his own internally, winning election after election, approving an ‘illiberal’ (or, better said, post-liberal) constitution, and safeguarding his nation’s border from the Brussels-approved migratory assault. More egregiously and intolerably, Orbán made Hungary a countercultural bulwark of conservative ideas and foreign policy restraint, providing nationalists and antiglobalists elsewhere in the West with a proven guideline of how to govern—that is, how to effectively fight back against the globalist-progressive machine that operates in Europe under the EU brand. 

There was only one problem for the Brusselians—no matter how much foul play they were ready to resort to, from massive influence operations through the vast network of loyal NGOs the Commission funded in Budapest to the freezing of tens of billions in funding legitimately owed to the country’s budget, Hungarians just couldn’t be convinced to vote for the Left. For long, the propaganda narrative around Europe was that Orbán, as a political project, was an anomaly: that the prime minister’s brand of conservative nationalism and foreign policy realism was Orbán’s alone; that his illiberal turn was unpopular, if not reviled, at home; and that Budapest’s stern opposition to EU-mandated migratory insanity, bellicose adventurism against Russia, refusal of Ukrainian membership of the Union, and self-sabotage in energy policy was not happening because of Hungarians, but in spite of them. 

This public narrative was designed for the most distracted and believed by the silliest, within and outside the EU’s bureaucratic machinery. But at least the wisest, savviest of these mandarins understood perfectly well that these tales had little to no connection to reality. Whatever Orbán’s ills, being out of touch was not among them; in that sense, at least, he was a genuine ‘populist’ inasmuch as he governed in strong obedience to the popular will. True, Orbán fought tooth and nail to safeguard Hungary from the ludicrous open-door policies that have ravaged Europe in the past 15 years, even accepting the vast financial burden of a daily one million euro fine paid to the Commission for keeping the illegal intruders at bay. But in so doing, he had the overwhelming support of the Hungarian people, with 77% of voters opposing the EU’s migrant quota plans, according to a 2023 poll. Similarly, 2019 polls showed that 87.5% of Hungarians opposed non-European immigration. The same goes for Orbán’s war policy, with 80% opposing the supply of arms to Kiev in 2022. Even after Magyar’s victory, only 27% would support Budapest unblocking EU membership negotiations with Ukraine, with 54% adamantly opposed. More than half of Hungarians (52%) also oppose giving up on Russian energy exports.

The Eurocrats knew they could not retake Hungary by offering its people a happy-clappy SJW progressive in the form of Spain’s Pedro Sánchez or Canada’s former prime minister Pierre Trudeau nor a rancid technocrat like Germany’s Friedrich Merz. Neither would do. What they needed, rather, was someone who sounded like Orbán and walked like Orbán—but was nothing like Orbán. Having lost the argument, their only hope was an Orbán impersonator. That person was Péter Magyar, a Fidesz veteran who spared no effort to convince his people that he would be Orbán 2.0, or an Orbán without whatever people had grown tired of in the original. Magyar, thus, positioned himself firmly on the right on issues like immigration and Russian oil. On Ukraine, he opposed fast-tracking Kiev’s entry into the Union and has even tied Budapest’s stance on the issue to a popular referendum. 

That was smart politicking—and it earned Magyar the supermajority he craved. Since Hungary’s election on April 12th, however, the new prime minister has proved his critics correct by revealing himself as a Trojan horse candidate. Time and again, he had made clear that what is next for Hungary is a repetition of the Polish scenario, where Donald Tusk—despite losing the 2023 parliamentary election—concocted a parliamentary coup to place himself in power. He then proceeded to purge the government and media from conservative elements with wanton authoritarianism, even sending the police after journalists he wasn’t happy with. 

It is now clear that Magyar will follow that same model to impose an authoritarian, EU-aligned, and progressive regime in Hungary. Like Tusk in Poland, he has now announced his determination to close Hungary’s state TV, accusing it of being close to Orbán. In his first speech as prime minister, he has made clear that he wishes to “punish” the crimes of the outgoing government, language that would be universally condemned if an incoming right-winger had said it of a previous progressive executive. He has insisted on his demand that Hungarian President Tamás Sulyok, who was lawfully elected during Orbán’s tenure and is the former prime minister’s ally, resign his office for no apparent reason other than Magyar’s desire for total control. He is bent on crushing any form of opposition to his rule, whether political or cultural; he wishes to expropriate the assets of important conservative-leaning think tanks such as the Mathias Corvinus Collegium. Even though no court of law in a free country would agree to his authoritarian projects, Magyar’s two-thirds majority in parliament allows him to vassalise the country’s National Judicial Council, therefore giving him vast influence over courts. He even wanted to have his own brother-in-law, Márton Melléthei-Barna, appointed as Justice Minister. The only reason this didn’t happen was the public outcry it generated.

He has seemingly tired of pretending to be centre-right, too. He nominated a far-left LGBT activist, Judith Lannert, as education minister. Meanwhile, his new Foreign Minister, Anita Orbán, is a globalist fanatic wholly committed to the erosion of Hungarian independence and the adoption of the European Commission’s talking points. His government’s promises of border rigidity are falling apart pretty rapidly — Anita Orbán is now on record arguing for Hungary’s submission to the EU’s Migration Pact, signalling a full capitulation on the migratory dossier. With Ursula von der Leyen’s plots to impose her will on the Hungarian people successful, it will hardly surprise that the EU’s flag has now been raised in Hungary’s beautiful parliament building for the first time in years, with the EU’s anthem sung during Magyar’s investiture. The gratuitous insult to Hungary had a taste of 1956. Then as now, a Hungarian patriotic revolt was crushed by the machinations of a foreign empire; then as now, brute force seemed triumphant. 

But it wasn’t. As brazenly authoritarian and EU-aligned—that is, Hungary-disaligned—as the new regime appears to be, the fraud Magyar relied on to win the election is quickly falling apart. Many who fell for the lie are now opening their eyes, and a reorganisation of the Hungarian conservative movement is ongoing. The Hungarian right has no lack of talented leaders ready to punch back. Don’t count Hungary out just yet.