Hungary’s opposition leader Peter Magyar was wearing a traditional Hungarian-style white shirt and a white waistcoat embroidered with bright blue flowers when he and several dozen supporters walked across the Hungarian–Romanian border at about 9 a.m. on Saturday morning.
As they continued their walk through northwestern Romania, people came out to speak to the Hungarian politician, asking him to pose for selfies or shaking his hand. Drivers honked their horns in greeting.
By lunchtime, the group had reached the city of Oradea.
Later, while addressing a crowd of several hundred people outside the city’s fortress, Magyar said: “the countdown has begun. Hungarians want to be part of Europe. They’ve had enough of dictatorship and division. They want peace, calm and prosperity.”
Why did Magyar walk to this part of Romania?
Oradea was the final stop on Magyar’s 11-day, million-step walk, the latest in his series of high-profile political actions in the midst of an unprecedented campaign of hate and agitation by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his government against anyone who thinks differently from themselves.
Orban accuses Magyar and his Tisza (Respect and Freedom) Party of working for the Ukrainian secret service and being traitors, without providing any evidence to back up these claims.
Magyar said he wanted to listen to the concerns and troubles of Hungarians along the way and that the walk marked the beginning of the end of the Orban era. It was the first walk of its kind in Hungary.
Magyar’s walk began in the Hungarian capital on May 14 and took him over 300 kilometers (186 miles) southeast to Oradea, which is home to many ethnic Hungarian Romanians.
Ethnic Hungarians in Hungary’s neighboring countries who hold dual citizenship are not only an important voter group in Hungarian parliamentary elections, they are also traditionally of immense emotional significance for Hungarian society.
This is particularly true of the ethnic Hungarians in Transylvania and other regions of Romania.
Historical ties
For many Hungarians, the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, which saw two-thirds of Hungarian territory given to Hungary’s neighbors after World War I, remains a major trauma. Almost overnight, large parts of Hungary’s population became citizens of other countries.
The ethnic Hungarians of Transylvania have a reputation in Hungary as dogged freedom fighters and preservers of all things Hungarian.
One of the things that triggered the end of the communist dictatorship in Hungary in 1989/90 were protests against the plans of Romania’s communist dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, to raze up to 7,000 villages in Romania.
Many ethnic Hungarians would have been directly affected by these plans. Mass demonstrations against the Romanian regime and in solidarity with ethnic Hungarians in Romania began in Hungary in 1988.
Magyar ahead in the polls
Although votes cast in Hungarian elections by ethnic Hungarians in neighboring countries account for an average of just two seats in Hungary’s parliament, no politician who wants to win an election can afford to ignore this voter group or even go against it.
Recent opinion polls suggest that Peter Magyar and the Tisza Party would easily defeat Orban and Fidesz in a parliamentary election. The next one is due to take place in spring 2026.
Magyar’s success to date is down to the fact that he denounces widespread corruption in the Orban system and the poor state of the country’s public infrastructure, including its education and healthcare systems.
This appeals to many in Hungary who are tired of Orban after 16 uninterrupted years of his rule.
Orban’s big mistake
But Magyar is now widening his political strategy.
First of all, he is paying more attention to the issue of ethnic Hungarians in neighboring countries. He has been helped in this respect by a major political mistake Orban made in the runup to Romania’s recent presidential election.
Orban gave his backing to the pro-Russian hard-right candidate George Simion, who is known for violent, anti-Hungarian actions in the past.
In 2019, for example, Simion and his supporters wrecked Hungarian graves in a graveyard for Hungarian and Romanian soldiers in Transylvania. The attack came as a massive shock to the ethnic Hungarian community.
Orban’s backing of Simion put him at odds with the leadership of the UDMR, the political party of Romania’s Hungarian minority, which is otherwise loyally aligned with the Hungarian leader.
Record numbers of ethnic Hungarians in Romania voted for Simion’s pro-European opponent, Nicusor Dan, helping him win the election.
Focus on Hungarian minorities
Peter Magyar made political capital out of this during his speech in Oradea.
He portrayed Orban as someone who quite easily puts political interests ahead of the welfare of the Hungarian community in neighboring countries — despite the fact that it was Orban’s own party that anchored the protection of this group in the Hungarian constitution.
Orban also has close ties to Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, both of whom have a long tradition of aggressive policies towards their countries’ minorities and in particular their Hungarian minorities.
With his campaign against Ukraine joining the EU, Orban has also consciously positioned himself against the interests of Ukraine’s Hungarian minority, whose members are strongly in favor of Ukraine’s EU accession.
Poisoned atmosphere
But Magyar is making a concerted effort to ensure that his speeches are not just built on anti-Orban messages. He consciously uses positive messages and often uses terms such as “peace,” “reconciliation” and “unity.”
The reason for this is that after over a decade-and-a-half of Orban rule, Hungarian society is struggling with what has become an extremely polarized, poisoned public atmosphere.
Many Hungarians have firsthand experience of the strain political disputes put on friendships and family relationships.
Is change imminent?
It remains to be seen whether Magyar’s message will strike a chord with ethnic Hungarians living in Hungary’s neighboring countries. After all, Orban’s government supports ethnic Hungarians in Transylvania alone to the tune of several hundred million euro a year.
On Saturday, at least, it looked as if most of those who turned out to hear Magyar speak in Oradea were on his side. After his speech, he posed for countless selfies and spoke to locals.
Most people seemed curious, saying that they didn’t know Magyar very well, but that it was time for a change at the top in Hungary.
At his press conference on Saturday, Magyar repeated his mantra: “This is the start of something new.” He might well be right.
This article was originally published in German and adapted by Aingeal Flanagan.
