Revelations, fake news, a civil war-like atmosphere: Hungary has not experienced such a fierce election campaign since the end of the dictatorship in 1989. But the hope for the end of Orbán's regime is high.
He is still the leader of the Hungarian opposition - but he already speaks as if he is the new prime minister. He calls Orbán's cabinet "the outgoing government" and says that systemic change has already begun. He lists in detail what the first and most important political steps of the new Hungarian rulers will be and how he intends to address even those people who will not vote for him.
Peter Magyar - the 45-year-old lawyer, former diplomat and leader of the Hungarian opposition for two years, has never suffered from a lack of self-confidence. But in the course of the election campaign - especially in the last weeks of the election campaign, the chairman of the "Tisa" party has changed a lot: he now behaves like a winner and manager of the new government.
Magyar reflects the mood of a large part of Hungarians. Dissatisfaction with Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his system has been growing for a long time, but now the desire for change is felt in the country. However, there is also tension due to Orban's aggressive campaign. Sociological surveys have found significant concerns that "Fidesz" can cancel the elections at the last minute or falsify their results.
A serious change in public sentiment
Political scientist Laszlo Keri, a former law professor of Viktor Orbán, sees similarities with the systemic change in Hungary in 1989-1990. He predicts the highest voter turnout since the first free parliamentary elections in March 1990. According to him, this will be "an election that could affect the future of Europe - at a time when Europe itself is looking for its own path".
In fact, in recent weeks, contrary to expectations, it is not Orbán and his party that have dominated the campaign, but a series of spectacular revelations about the dirty and opaque practices in the "Orbán" system. This has clearly caused a major shift in the attitudes of many wavering voters.
The majority wants change
Immediately before the elections, most independent opinion polls predicted a clear triumph for "Tisa" and Péter Magyar. One poll even showed a huge lead - with two-thirds of the vote. These polls should be taken with some caution, but it is a fact that a significant majority of Hungarians want an end to the Orbán regime and change - political, social and economic.
The strongest impetus for the change in public attitudes was given by the interview with former police investigator Bence Szabo. His department for combating child pornography on the Internet was used by government services for a secret operation against the "Tisa" party in order to sabotage it and deprive it of a chance in the elections - an unprecedented case in Hungary's recent history. Thousands of Hungarians recognized themselves in the face of the conscientious, honest and apolitical investigator Szabo, who expressed his indignation at the illegal political operations and, after not being heard by the leadership, turned to the public.
Vote buying, fraud, corruption
A similar response was recently caused by the revelations about the alarming state of the Hungarian army, while the government was at the same time planning a costly military mission in the Central African country of Chad. According to investigations, this was inspired solely by the religious idea of Orbán's son, Gaspar, who believed that a "rescue mission for Africa" should be carried out. The life of Gaspar Orbán, who went from Hungarian professional football to Christian preaching in Uganda to training at the British military academy "Sandhurst", has been a frequently discussed topic in the Hungarian media for years.
In recent weeks, Hungarian society has been shaken by a number of other scandals. The documentary "The Price of a Vote", published at the end of March on YouTube, shows how the "Fidesz" party has been buying the votes of poor Hungarians, Roma and drug addicts for years. Back in February, it was revealed that Samsung's battery factory in the town of Gyöd, north of Budapest, was exposing workers to serious health risks and polluting the environment - something that Orbán's government had known for a long time and had deliberately concealed.
At the same time, Hungarians also learned about the luxurious reconstruction of the National Bank building in Budapest. Its former director, György Matolcsi, a former chief financial advisor to Orbán, even ordered a personal toilet with gold-plated brushes. Meanwhile, Matolcsi's family, who amassed their fortune through fraud, has apparently already moved to Dubai.
A humiliating indulgence for the Kremlin
Gradually, the image of an elite that shamelessly benefits itself, without caring about the well-being of the people and nature in the country, while at the same time accusing its critics of harming the national interest, has become entrenched in society. For many Hungarians, this sounds extremely cynical - especially after recent publications by Hungarian and international media, which revealed that Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó had passed confidential information to his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov. From them it becomes clear that both Szijjártó and Orbán are trying their best to please the Kremlin, and in the most humiliating way - for example, Orbán compares himself to Putin with a mouse helping a lion.
It is surprising that the prime minister and his party react not with refutations, but with statements that they "protect Hungary from espionage, coup attempts or military attacks from Ukraine". The slogan of "Ukraine and EU interference" in Hungary's internal affairs is the basis of Orbán's entire campaign. The campaign ended with Orbán's grotesque statement that the elections would decide "whether Zelensky or I will form the future Hungarian government".
For the first time, artificial intelligence videos containing fake footage and messages were used extensively during European elections. This was the first modern election campaign in Europe in which a large-scale "parallel reality" was artificially created.