By Andrea Szabó and Annamária Sebestyén
Veni, Vidi, Vici? We do not know yet. However, Hungarian public discourse in the past few months has revolved around the so-called “Péter Magyar Phenomenon.” Andrea Szabó and Annamária Sebestyén (HUN-REN Center for Social Sciences, Institute for Political Science) share their insights into the reasons behind Péter Magyar’s success from a perspective that has so far been neglected: how a deepening political vacuum has fostered collective longings.
The “Péter Magyar Phenomenon” is about how a man who two months ago was practically unknown, transforms into a political challenger enjoying the support of broad sections of Hungarian society. We argue that the current popularity of the vice-president of the Party of Respect and Freedom (TISZA – the abbreviation is also the name of the second largest river in the country as well as the family name of long-serving conservative Prime Ministers over a century ago) can only be understood through the political situation in which the hitherto unknown ‘politician’ has found himself. It is, therefore, not only the novel actor that is worthy of attention but also the situation that allowed the Péter Magyar Phenomenon to emerge.
Background
On April 3, 2022, it became clear that Hungarian voters in the parliamentary elections were critical, not of the government in power since 2010, but rather of the opposition, which consisted of six parties at that time. Fidesz–KDNP, the dominant Hungarian government party, received more than 54% of the votes cast, compared to 34% for the opposition. The radical right-wing Our Homeland Movement (Mi Hazánk Mozgalom) also clearly passed the 5% threshold, making the overall picture even more complicated. The “central space of power” that Fidesz–KDNP had declared has been re-established and even strengthened.
After this most recent national elections, opposition voters sank into deep political apathy. While in April 2018, thousands of protesters expressed their dissatisfaction with the opposition’s strategy, which had also resulted in a two-thirds majority,
in 2022, the voters quietly accepted the results, which apparently showed them that political developments were irreversible.
The sour mood of the opposition voters was only exacerbated by events between the spring of 2022 and February 2024. However, despite inflation and simultaneous energy, economic, and social crises, support for the ruling party did not fall below a critical level, as confirmed by the fact that around 40% of those who had clear party preferences said they would vote for Fidesz regardless of its actions in power. Although the two years following the elections were not free of voices critical of the government, as teachers, students, and parents across the country organized significant protests on issues related to teachers and public education in both 2022 and 2023, the first few polls of 2024 pointed to the stabilization, even to a slight increase in Fidesz’s support.
The clemency scandals
In these circumstances, the so-called “clemency scandal” broke. During the spring of 2023 – just before Pope Francis’ visit to the country – President Katalin Novák, exercising her discretionary power, pardoned the deputy director of the children’s home in Bicske, a small rural town, who had been convicted of aiding a pedophile. Once it became public, the public reception of the clemency – which resulted in the swift resignation of the president and the end of the political career of Minister of Justice Judit Varga – indicated that there is a latent, serious dissatisfaction in Hungarian society with the ruling party and its functioning. What the scandal also showed was that no political party was capable of channeling and organizing this dissatisfaction, to turn it against Fidesz, and to pose as a credible alternative to the government. By the early spring of 2024, a lack of political alternatives was combined with an oppositional leadership vacuum in a typical moment of socio-economic-political crisis.
The sense of timing, the ability to assess a situation accurately and quickly, and to respond to it in a relevant way – in short, a political sense – is of enormous, paramount, and irreplaceable importance in politics.
The right sentence at the right time can bring votes or take them away. On February 11, 2024, on Partizán, an oppositional YouTube channel, reporter Márton Gulyás interviewed Péter Magyar, a relatively young man previously unknown to the public and with no elected position, who claimed to belong to the inner circles of the Orbán regime. Magyar’s only distinguishing quality appeared to be that he was the ex-husband of former Minister of Justice Judit Varga who had just resigned. Magyar could therefore be viewed as a keeper of secrets that could expose the actual functioning of the Orbán regime. Thus, he appeared to be an “insider” and, therefore, of interest to the electorate.
The Péter Magyar phenomenon
The first big moment of Péter Magyar’s public life was on February 11, 2024. However, the Magyar political phenomenon was first manifested on the national holiday of March 15, during a demonstration that mobilized tens of thousands. A study by Balázs Kiss and colleagues argues that
a political rally, thanks to the socio-psychological situation that emerges there – interactions, emotions, the power of physical togetherness, the density of the crowd, and the interaction with the speakers –, can have a tremendous community-strengthening or even community-building power.
At a good rally, “participants are influenced by each other, energized, and, of course, emotionally charged. This energy and these emotions are transformed after the event into a lasting feeling of identification with the party and the leader and a sense of belonging among the community members in the case of a successful rally.” (Antal et al., 2014: 10, all translations from the Hungarian original are the authors’ own).
Magyar has so far relied on this community-building effect, using, and exploiting the power of the crowd.
In essence, it is the large, curious, and dissatisfied crowd that has created the Péter Magyar Phenomenon.
It is the crowd, forming at rallies even in small villages, which carries and sustains the phenomenon. This disillusioned electorate, which has been experiencing more and more failures since 2010, can make Magyar a real politician on June 9, 2024, on the day of European and municipal elections.
In political science terms, the ‘charisma-hungry’ audience (i.e., populist followers) and its emotional association with the populist leader (i.e., Péter Magyar) are supposed to be the key to the phenomenon (for details, see Tóka, 2006; Metz, 2021; 2022; Metz–Plesz, 2023).
Magyar – who was a member of the Fidesz elite – has an anti-elitist, nation-centric, and a rather black-and-white worldview. He rejects the political status quo and has distanced himself from both the left and the right. His long-standing affiliation with Fidesz has disappeared from his gradually evolving political views. By the end of May 2024, Magyar has assumed the role of the main and only political challenger. Moreover,
despite all the contradictions surrounding his person, he possesses individual qualities such as his impressive public speaking skills and (as mentioned before) insider’s ability to inspire hope in his charisma-seeking audience and restore their faith that there is a point in challenging the status quo.
He is an online and offline politician, addressing local and national issues. At the time of writing this problem-oriented article, he meets the criteria for being a populist leader.
However, it is important to note that Magyar may only stay where he is because of the (opposition) society’s need for a charismatic leader. After 14 years, or, if we begin the count from 2006, after nearly two decades of failure, Hungarians appear to be so eager to have a leader who is potent and promises success against the Orbán regime that they grant their trust without applying the most basic criteria of political knowledge – precisely because of Magyar’s unfamiliarity.
Therefore, June 9, 2024, will only be the first stage in interpreting this novel phenomenon. The real answer to whether Péter Magyar will become an extraordinary political actor will be given in 2026, on the next general elections in Hungary.
