Who is Peter Magyar, the winner of the elections in Hungary?

In just two years, Peter Magyar has risen from a virtually unknown figure in Hungarian politics to the man who ended the 16-year dominance of Viktor Orban's Fidesz party, which was once his home. 

Magyar rose to prominence in 2024 as the government grappled with a presidential pardon scandal involving the accomplice of a child molester. Before that, he had grown up in a conservative family and was no stranger to Fidesz politics.

Born into a family of prominent conservatives, his grandfather was well-known television personality and lawyer Pal Eross, while his godfather Ferenc Madl was the President of Hungary. Magyar received his degree from the law faculty of Pázmany Peter Catholic University in 2004.

While at university, he befriended Gergely Gulyas, now Minister of State in Prime Minister Viktor Orban's office. Gulyas introduced Magyar to Judit Varga, with whom he had three children after marrying her in 2006. Varga later became the country's justice minister under Orban.

After being sent to Brussels by the Orban government to serve as a diplomat dealing with EU affairs, the family returned to Hungary in 2018. Magyar was appointed to the board of directors of the state-owned road operation and maintenance company Magyar Közut ZRT. He later became the head of the government's student loan provider and was on the board of several other state-owned companies.

He and Judit Varga, who became minister of justice during that period, divorced in 2023.

Magyar was largely unknown to the public until a scandal erupted in early 2024, where the pardon of the accomplice of a convicted child abuser led to the president's resignation, as well as Vargas's retirement from politics.

The Fidesz party blamed Varga, who signed the pardon decision in her capacity as justice minister.

Peter Magyar was so outraged that within hours he wrote on Facebook against the Orban government. From that moment on, his relationship with the party was turned upside down.

His post accused the government of corruption and described abuses he had personally witnessed, such as the forced favoritism of people close to Orban during his time as head of the national student loan provider.

He then gave an interview with the online channel Partizan, an event that is considered to have played a major role in his rapidly growing popularity.

In fact, Peter Magyar became so popular that within a few days he organized a rally in Budapest on Andrassy Avenue, which attracted tens of thousands of people.

Taking advantage of his newfound support, he took over the leadership of the previously unknown Tisza Party and ran as a candidate in the 2024 European Parliament elections. He won one seat as an MEP, with Tisza coming in second behind the governing coalition.

The result of those elections showed that Hungarian voters seemed to have become increasingly disillusioned with the other opposition parties, which Hungarians called the "old opposition."

Scandals and accusations did little to damage Hungary's rise.

Since then, he has been charged with a number of crimes, including domestic violence by his ex-wife, espionage and drug use. A document was recently posted by the media, claiming to be the Tisza Party's tax program, but its authenticity was never confirmed.

In an incident that occurred in February of this year, Magyar said he was blackmailed by government figures with a sex video showing him and his ex-partner, secretly recorded in a Budapest apartment in 2024. Fidesz representatives denied this claim.
Hungary has promised to improve public services in the country and undertake reforms that will unfreeze billions of euros that the EU had allocated to Hungary.
His stance on LGBTQ issues is ambiguous, while his views on immigration are even more strict than Orban's, having said he would end the government's guest worker program. He generally distrusts the media and often clashes with them.
Overall, his promise to voters is simple: a functional country with a Western identity and Christian-conservative politics, but without what he calls Fidesz's corruption./Euronews Albania