By Christian Edwards, CNN
Budapest, Hungary (CNN) — When Péter Magyar was growing up during Hungary’s democratic transition, he had a poster of Viktor Orbán pinned to his bedroom wall. At the time, Orbán was a liberal anti-communist who had famously demanded the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary.
Now, Magyar is projected to end Orbán’s 16-year stint as Hungary’s prime minister.
The playing field for Sunday’s parliamentary vote was tilted against Magyar. Observers say Hungary’s heavily gerrymandered electoral system, coupled with a pro-government media landscape, have made Hungary’s elections free but not fair.
For many Hungarians, especially those who have grown up knowing little but Orbán’s rule, the moment has been years in the making.
“We’ve been waiting for this for a long time. A really long time,” said Dora, a 30-year-old attorney – one of thousands of people who gathered Sunday on the banks of the Danube in Budapest to hear the election results.
Fit, sharply dressed and, at 45, some 17 years younger than Orbán, Magyar – whose last name means “Hungarian” – comes from a well-to-do Budapest family. His relatives include lawyers and judges, as well as the former president Ferenc Mádl, who served as president of Hungary from 2000 until 2005, during Orbán’s first term as prime minister.
Magyar’s journey from an Orbán loyalist to his nemesis was swift. Just two years ago, he was a member of the governing Fidesz party and had previously been married to Judit Varga, once one of the party’s rising stars.
The couple lived for about a decade in Brussels, Belgium, where Magyar was a diplomat and Varga worked for a Fidesz Member of the European Parliament (MEP). They moved back to Budapest with their three sons in 2018. The following year, Varga was appointed Orbán’s justice minister – a role she left in 2023 to lead Fidesz into the 2024 European Parliament elections.
That plan was upended by a scandal that rocked Fidesz in early 2024. Hungary’s president at the time, Katalin Novák, had pardoned a former official convicted of helping cover up the abuse of underaged boys at a children’s home. The revelation of the pardon punctured a perception of Orbán’s government, held by many, as the defender of Christian and family values.
“The core of the self-definition of Fidesz is that they are conservative, family-friendly, and they protect children,” Péter Krekó, a political scientist who runs Political Capital, a think-tank in Budapest, told CNN.
To many voters, the pardon scandal exposed the “hypocrisy” of the Orbán project, Krekó said. Varga, also involved in the pardon, resigned, with many seeing her departure as one forced by Orbán.
It was at this moment – when, according to Krekó, there was “huge demand for someone who could challenge Orbán” – that Magyar strode onto the political stage.
In February 2024, Magyar gave an explosive video interview to Partizan, a Hungarian media outlet, accusing Orbán and his allies of “hiding behind women’s skirts” in the pardon scandal. He also used the interview to share information he had gleaned from his proximity to government. “A few families own half the country,” he said in the interview, which has now been viewed nearly 3 million times, in a country of fewer than 10 million people.
Later that year, Magyar joined the Tisza party and quickly rose up the ranks to become its leader?. Under his leadership, Tisza unexpectedly won almost 30% of the Hungarian votes in the European Parliament election in June 2024, making Magyar an MEP.
Suddenly, Hungarians, increasingly tired of Orbán but lacking credible opposition parties, were presented with a viable political alternative. Since then, the party’s membership has ballooned. “Tisza” is an acronym of the Hung