Will Fidesz Stop Tisza’s Tide? The year ahead Hungary’s 2026 parliamentary election

Barely a year ahead of the next parliamentary election, Péter Magyar’s Respect and Freedom (Tisza) party leads the polls in Hungary. Its rapid ascent is challenging the long-standing narrative that it is impossible to defeat the governing coalition of Fidesz – Hungarian Civic Alliance (Fidesz) and the Christian Democratic People’s Party (KDNP) in an election. Yet Tisza’s surge, reflecting the public’s growing dissatisfaction with the government is already triggering an authoritarian backlash. From a “foreign agent” bill aimed at civil society to smear campaigns branding Magyar a Ukrainian stooge, recent developments signal that 2025-26 will be Hungary’s most contested and least fair electoral cycle ever since the regime change.

With a year to go until the next parliamentary election in Hungary, several spring polls have placed Péter Magyar’s year-old Tisza party clearly ahead of the governing bloc. Medián’s mid-March poll, for example, showed Tisza leading Fidesz by nine points among the entire electorate, narrowing only slightly among committed voters, while Závecz Research measured a 40-35 split in Tisza’s favour. The party’s rising support reflects a growing anti-government sentiment toward Fidesz that has been in power for 15 years. Faced with such a serious challenger for the first time since it assumed power in 2010 and fearing the potential consequences of an electoral defeat, the Fidesz-government has responded by intimidating critics, altering the electoral playing field, and smearing Magyar.

The government increased pressure on critical voices over the spring, with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán promising an “Easter-time cleaning” to rid the country of “bugs that survived the winter” – referring to non-governmental organisations (NGOs), media outlets, and even judges who have been critical of the government. Most recently, the party advanced a Russian-style “foreign agent” bill titled “On the transparency of public life” that would allow a freshly empowered Sovereignty Protection Office (SPO)—led by a Fidesz loyalist, András Lánczi—to blacklist organizations that receive financial support from abroad, if it deems them to threaten the country’s sovereignty. According to the bill, any activity can fall into this category that may influence public opinion and violates or portrays in a negative light the country’s independent, democratic character based on the rule of law; the unity of the nation and responsibility for Hungarians abroad; the primacy of marriage, family, and biological sex; peace, security, and cooperation with other countries; and Hungary’s constitutional identity and Christian culture. Blacklisted organizations would face severe consequences that could endanger their operation. They would not be able accept funding from abroad without authorization; they would no longer be eligible for a 1 percent allocation of personal income tax donated by individuals to NGOs; and all those who donate to them would need to formally declare that the funds are not coming from abroad. Should an organization accept foreign funding, it may face fines 25 times as high as the accepted sum. The bill—which threatens organizations that have filled an important watchdog function in the country—was promptly denounced by a wide coalition of Hungarian NGOs as well as over 80 editors of media outlets across Europe, and raised concerns across the aisles of the European Parliament. The bill is expected to be passed in mid-June.

The governing party also turned its fire directly on Tisza seeking to limit the party’s chances politically and to discredit its leader personally. The unprecedented rise of the new opposition challenger has its roots in a clemency scandal that erupted in February 2024 and ultimately led to the resignation of President Katalin Novák and withdrawal of former Minister of Justice Judit Varga from heading Fidesz’s European parliamentary campaign and list. Riding the wave of public outcry over the pardoning of a convicted supporter of a paedophile, Magyar—Varga’s ex-husband—released an audio in which Varga implicated senior officials in a graft cover-up and used it to re-brand himself as an anti-corruption and anti-government crusader. Within a few months, he successfully channelled the anti-government protests into a movement and ultimately toward his Tisza party. Magyar’s messages highlighting the governance failures, economic mismanagement, corruption and cronyism of Fidesz, and pledge to join the European Public Prosecutor’s Office and get the frozen EU funds released resonated across ideological lines. As a result, he managed to build, in barely a year, a coalition broader than any opposition force since 2010.

Yet, Tisza couples unprecedented popular reach with a still-fragile infrastructure. The opposition party’s primary strength lies in the breadth of the support base and its rapid move to develop a country-wide network rooted in locally organized so-called “Tisza islands”. These local organizations seek to challenge Fidesz’s organizational monopoly in the countryside that has been crucial for its stable majorities since 2010. But with less than a year remaining until the election, strengthening these local structures remains one of the key tasks for the party. Tisza also remains dependent in its popularity on Magyar personally, with no other public faces having been built up yet. Against this background, any successful blow against Magyar could decapitate the party and halt its chances in the next election. A recent request by Hungarian authorities to strip Magyar of his immunity as an MEP underscores this risk. Moving forward, the ideological heterogeneity of voters the party needs to embrace may also prove challenging when slogans need to be translated into concrete policy programs closer to the election.

Although these hurdles are not insignificant, the governing Fidesz-KDNP coalition is likely to add further obstacles to the race in the coming year. Passing last-minute changes to the election rules and the electoral system that favor the governing party are not unprecedented and may be expected ahead of 2026, too. Already in December 2024, the governing majority redrew 39 out of the 106 single-mandate districts reducing the number of seats allocated in Budapest, carving up opposition-leaning suburbs and leaving Fidesz-heavy constituencies untouched. Further ideas to alter the system, such as a shift back to a two-round majoritarian system and a lower parliamentary threshold, both of which would handicap a single dominant challenger while reviving micro-parties capable of draining Tisza votes, were also floated albeit not (yet) officially put forward.

Attacks on Magyar personally have also been notable. In April 2025, Fidesz passed a law allowing the National Election Office to revoke an MEP’s mandate for alleged asset disclosure errors. The measure’s exclusivity to European deputies and its timing makes the new law appear to be tailored to target Magyar specifically. Parallel criminal probes have reopened a decade-old insider-trading allegation against Tisza’s leader, which case could well drag through the entire campaign period even if it never reaches indictment.

Beyond electoral tinkering and lawfare, accusatory narratives and the governing parties’ propaganda machine have also been deployed to discredit the opposition. Fidesz’s most prominent smear campaign brands Tisza as a party of Brussels that is kept alive and financed from abroad – alleging therefore that the 2026 election will decide whether Brussels’ will gets implemented in Hungary. The narrative also frames Tisza as a party that is in favor of the suspension of EU funds, is a subordinate of the European People’s Party, and is supporting Ukraine’s EU entry that would contribute to the loss of EU resources to Hungary. The instrumentalization of Ukraine in the anti-Tisza rhetoric is expanding even further: Most recently, the leader of Fidesz’s parliamentary faction Máté Kocsis went as far as suggesting that Tisza colluded with Ukrainian intelligence—a theme then amplified across progovernment outlets. These waves of messages paint Tisza and Magyar as a foreign agent to mobilise Fidesz’s base. They also pre‑justify harsher legal or administrative moves by casting the upcoming election as a struggle for national sovereignty.

As Hungary enters the final campaign year with the two dominant blocs of Fidesz-KDNP and Tisza, an ailing economy, and EU funds still partly frozen, the governing coalition is visibly uneasy with its prospects for success. If current polling holds, Fidesz could lose its two-thirds constitutional majority and may even see its simple majority at risk. The next eleven months will show to what length Fidesz is willing to go to prevent this. Whether Tisza can sustain momentum while scaling up the organization, if Magyar can be shielded from legal and rhetorical attacks, and the election can be kept broadly free, will all be decisive factors for the outcome.