Hungarian politicians from the country's ruling right-wing populist Fidesz party accuse national conservative opposition leader Peter Magyar of all sorts of things. They say that the 44-year-old leader of the Tisza party and favorite for the parliamentary elections in spring 2026 is a Brussels mercenary. They call him a Ukrainian agent and a warmonger who wants to forcibly recruit Hungarian men. They also allege that he is a corrupt charlatan, an abuser of women, and, above all, a liar.
Yet despite more than a year of such campaigning against him by 62-year-old Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his Fidesz (Federation of Young Democrats) party, Magyar has risen to become the country's most popular politician.
But now the trend is weakening. Four months ahead of the election, Tisza is stagnating, while Fidesz slowly catches up. In some polls, Tisza's lead has fallen from 10% to 5%. Observers attribute this to a new strategy in Orban's election campaign: showering the populace with offers of money, tax cuts, and social benefits. Hungarian media commentators call it a "tsunami of promises."
But Orban isn't just promising policies that would go into effect after his election. Some are set to take effect beforehand, even though Hungary's budget deficit is rising and currently stands at around 5% — with stagnating economic growth, falling tax revenues, and billions in frozen European Union subsidies.
Long-term debt for short-term gain?
At the beginning of 2026, for example, a lifetime income tax exemption will come into force for mothers with two children — initially for those under 40, and later also for older mothers. Meanwhile, pensioners will receive a 13th and even a 14th monthly pension in February 2026, just eight weeks before the election. Several other tax breaks for families and subsidies for pensioners have also already begun.
Orban has coined a catchy phrase for this policy: "Even those who don't vote for us benefit from us." The irony here is that while Orban creates long-term national debt with his election campaign gifts, he regularly accuses other EU states of squandering money for future generations by supporting Ukraine.
Meanwhile, his "tsunami of promises" is accompanied by a new smear campaign and even more absurd accusations against his competitor. If Magyar wins the election and Tisza comes to power, the standard of living of Hungarians would plummet because citizens would be forced to foot the bill for the war in Ukraine, according to these claims. Magyar would also impose a high tax on dogs and cats, another claim goes.
Wooing pensioners
Fidesz has closed the gap on Tisza in the polls because the ruling camp's latest campaign has been particularly effective among undecided voters, Hungarian political economist Zoltan Pogatsa told DW. "They are afraid that their standard of living will decline," he said.
Andras Biro-Nagy, director of the Policy Solutions research institute in Budapest, takes a similar view. Fidesz wants to drive up the perceived price of a change in government among undecided voters, he told the Telex news portal.
Gifts to pensioners are particularly important for Fidesz, election expert Matyas Bodi told DW. "They are the party's most important voter base. If they break away, Fidesz will have a serious problem," Bodi said. "That's why they are trying to bring pensions in line with real wage levels, hence the 14th month pension, which corresponds to a pension increase of seven to eight percent."
The claim that non-Fidesz voters also benefit from Orban's policies is a half-truth obscuring the fact that within his autocratic system, loyalty is rewarded while dissent is punished—also by financial means.
Blocking tax revenue
One lever in this process is the gradual curtailing of the once strong self-government of Hungarian municipalities and cities. Since Orban came to power in 2010, he has changed policies in favor of strong centralization. This allows the government to make detailed decisions about the allocation of funds. Empirical evaluations by scholars show that Fidesz-led or Orban-affiliated municipalities receive significantly more financial support, while those who favor the opposition are sometimes "starved out" with arbitrary measures.
A particularly striking example is the small town of Göd, a case which made international headlines. Fidesz lost the election there in October 2019. In spring of 2020, the government expropriated parts of an industrial park there using provisions from a special pandemic law, causing the town to lose a large part of its tax revenue.
Budapest on the brink
This policy is currently making headlines in Budapest. Gergely Karacsony, the capital city's left-wing green mayor, took office in 2019. Since then, Orban's government has done everything in its power to drive the city into financial ruin via a "solidarity contribution" requiring the transfer of disproportionately large sums to the state budget, in addition to making tricky budget cuts and failing to pay out funds to which Budapest is legally entitled.
The city now faces bankruptcy after being forced to use up all its financial reserves in recent years. Last week, Mayor Karacsony walked to Orban's official residence at the Carmelite monastery in Budapest's castle district to personally hand the prime minister a letter asking for clarification and help. Orban sent a secretary to the door to accept the letter and did not reply. Early this week, Karacsony marched back to the residence with several hundred employees and supporters — again without results.
It remains unclear how far the government blockade against Budapest will go. In other cases, Orban has seen fit to help cities and municipalities in a more unbureaucratic manner. In mid-November, the prime minister issued decrees approving rapid financial assistance for investment projects in a total of 70 locations. Independent Hungarian news outlet 444 discovered that these were precisely the small towns and municipalities where opposition leader Peter Magyar had recently appeared at election campaign events.
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