A photograph showing a senior figure from Hungary’s opposition Tisza Party performing a Nazi salute has triggered a fresh political controversy just weeks before the country’s parliamentary election.
The image, published on Friday, March 13th by Hungarian weekly Hetek, shows Zsolt Tárkányi, the party’s press chief and parliamentary candidate, marching among football ultras while raising his arm in a gesture widely associated with Nazi symbolism.
The photograph was taken in 2006 during a procession by the DVSC football club supporters’ ultra group Szívtiprók Ultras Debrecen.
The group has previously drawn criticism for extremist behaviour in the 2000s and 2010s, including antisemitic chants heard in football stadiums. In the image obtained by the Hungarian publication, several participants raise their arms, while Tárkányi partially covers his face with a scarf.
The weekly said it had verified the image with three separate artificial-intelligence detection tools, all of which suggested with more than 90% probability that the photograph had not been digitally manipulated.
The Tisza Party later acknowledged that Tárkányi is indeed the person shown in the photograph but said that the gesture visible in the picture was not a Nazi salute but a common gesture used by football fans.
Neither the party, nor Tárkányi apologised, and the episode could prove damaging for the opposition alliance led by Péter Magyar, whose relatively new Tisza Party has emerged as the main challenger to conservative prime minister Viktor Orbán ahead of Hungary’s April 12 election.
Tárkányi, who previously worked as a journalist at RTL, was appointed the party’s press chief in 2025. He is also running as Tisza’s candidate in Debrecen, a major eastern Hungarian city traditionally considered a stronghold of Orbán’s governing Fidesz party.
The photo comes at a sensitive moment for the opposition movement, which has already faced scrutiny over scandals surrounding its leadership.
Earlier this year, Magyar himself became embroiled in a political storm after acknowledging he had attended a party where “drug-like substances” were present, though he denied consuming them.
In 2024, he was involved in a late-night altercation at a Budapest nightclub, during which he forcibly took a mobile phone from a man filming him and later threw it into the Danube—an incident that led to a police investigation.
He has also faced repeated allegations of aggressive behaviour towards former partners—Evelin Vogel and his ex-wife, former Justice Minister Judit Varga.
Despite these controversies, the Tisza Party continues to receive strong backing from Europe’s centre-right establishment. The party is a member of the European People’s Party (EPP), the largest political group in the European Parliament.
Magyar’s political allies in Brussels have proven reliable. In October 2025, the European Parliament—dominated by the EPP and its liberal partners—voted to keep his parliamentary immunity intact, blocking Hungarian authorities from pursuing multiple legal cases against him.
EPP president Manfred Weber has publicly expressed confidence that the party could defeat Orbán’s government in the upcoming vote. Speaking earlier this year in Brussels, Weber said he had personally encouraged Magyar to join the EPP and described the Hungarian opposition as having a realistic chance of victory.
Weber said at the time
I’m proud that the EPP party is today the party who has a chance to win in Hungary
before adding that the EPP works only with partners who are “pro-Europe, pro-Ukraine, and pro-rule of law.”
April’s vote is widely seen as a defining contest over Hungary’s political direction, with Viktor Orbán framing the choice as one between national sovereignty—something his party, Fidesz strives for—and deeper alignment with European Union institutions.
