Budapest. The governing party Fidesz has found its campaign theme. After months of diffuse attacks on “Brussels”, gender politics, migration, or international financial interests, a clear message is now crystallising: Hungary is allegedly on the brink of war - and only Viktor Orbán can prevent the country from being dragged into it.

This focus is not background noise. It is orchestrated.

A look at the recent statements from the state news agency MTI is enough. Barely a day passes without a new warning about military escalation, without reference to alleged war plans by the EU or the opposition. The tone is apocalyptic, the argumentative structure simple: Anyone who does not vote Fidesz risks war.

At a campaign rally in Sukoró, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán declared that Hungary needs a government that “can say no - when we are pressured to give our money to Ukraine or to jointly take out a loan that ultimately leads to the deployment of troops in Ukraine”. The opposition would “push us into the war” and “send our money to Ukraine”.

The primary target of these attacks is the Tisza party led by Péter Magyar, which is clearly ahead of Fidesz in current polls and prediction markets. International betting platforms such as Polymarket - as of this week - show a comfortable lead for Tisza. The ruling party is responding with maximum polarisation.

The strategic shift is clear. Just a few months ago, broad anti-EU rhetoric dominated, flanked by domestic culture war themes. Now the opposition is being systematically portrayed as Ukrainian-controlled or at least as an extension of a “war coalition” in Brussels. Fidesz MEP Csaba Dömötör spoke in Brussels of a “resolution to continue the war”, backed by a “grand coalition” that also includes Tisza. The EU is allegedly planning higher military spending, attacks on Russian infrastructure, and a complete energy embargo - measures that would ruin Hungary.

At the same time, Orbán presents himself as an apostle of peace. His appearances oscillate between geopolitical pragmatism and almost mystical symbolism, when he speaks of the “power of love” as a political principle. Yet the message remains constant: Hungary must not be drawn in.

This dramaturgy is not new. In 2022, Fidesz also won by accusing the opposition of wanting to deliver weapons and lead Hungary into the war. That campaign worked. Whether it will hold again in 2026 is questionable. The economic situation is more strained, social discontent has grown.

It is striking how comprehensively the state apparatus is aligned behind this narrative. Interior State Secretary Bence Rétvári declared at a commemorative event that “Hungary must not participate in any war” - history teaches that one must stay out. Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó links every energy policy debate to the war. Diversification, yes, but not at the price of “ideological” decisions from Brussels. Cheap and reliable sources would not be replaced. This refers primarily to Russian gas, which reaches the country via TurkStream and the Druzhba pipeline.

Energy policy appears only as a sub-chapter of the war theme. The structural diversification missed after 2022 is rhetorically reframed as a forced situation: geography is destiny, pipeline capacities are physical facts. The fact that other states found alternative supply sources much more quickly goes unmentioned.

Even international cooperation is integrated into this narrative. Szijjártó emphasised in Washington a “new golden era” in relations with the USA, praised the pragmatic view on energy security, and highlighted exemptions from Russia sanctions. The message: Washington understands Hungary’s situation - Brussels does not.

The latest tensions with Kyiv - from espionage accusations to drone reports - provide additional material. Every bilateral crisis fits seamlessly into the grand narrative: Hungary as a threatened but level-headed nation caught between the fronts.

The logic seems almost paradoxical. The implicit message to voters is: Yes, the country has economic problems, structural deficits in education and healthcare, stagnating real wages. But all of this pales in comparison to the existential danger of war. We may have little to distribute - but the others would even send you to war.

This is a form of negative mobilisation that relies on fear rather than promises for the future. A masochistic variant of political communication: gratitude not for progress, but for the absence of catastrophe.

Whether this narrative holds depends on two factors. First, on the real development of the war in Ukraine. Every escalation, every new arms delivery, every discussion about European troop contingents can be exploited domestically. Second, on whether the opposition manages to defuse the issue and redirect the debate towards social and institutional questions.

The 2026 election campaign will not only be decided on policies, but on who controls the narrative. Fidesz has made its choice: the war is the centre. Everything else - the economy, corruption, infrastructure - is subordinated to this centre.

Sources: MTI.hu, campaign speech in Sukoró, international prediction markets.

Photo: MTI/Miniszterelnöki Kommunikációs Főosztály/Kaiser Ákos

Budapest/Munich. Anyone who understood Marco Rubio’s appearance at the Munich Security Conference as a politely packaged repair attempt of transatlantic relations focused on tone rather than substance. The substance was culture war. Two days later, it found a practical stage in Budapest. Viktor Orbán, under pressure in Hungary’s election campaign, was publicly elevated by the US Secretary of State, as if American interest in Hungary’s future depended on a single individual.

In a commentary for Deutschlandfunk’s MediaRes, columnist Marina Weisband described a central reflex in parts of the media: the avoidance of clear terminology, the reluctance to call the obvious by its name. In Rubio’s case, this hesitation is not only semantically uncomfortable but politically consequential. Many outlets spoke of “relief” that Rubio’s speech signaled willingness for partnership and a return to shared “Western” values. Yet the question is which partnership and which values.

Rubio’s Munich speech relies on building blocks familiar in Europe since the 1920s: civilization framed as a blood and soil narrative, internal enemies depicted as erosion, the nation cast as a threatened community of fate, international rules described as shackles, decadence invoked as diagnosis. His subsequent visit to Orbán illustrates the function of this language: to elevate an EU disruptor capable of paralyzing Brussels.

“Under President Trump, the United States of America will once again take on the task of renewal and restoration, driven by a vision of a future as proud, as sovereign, and as vital as our civilization’s past. And while we are prepared, if necessary, to do this alone, it is our preference and it is our hope to do this together with you, our friends here in Europe.”

The vision of Western predominance associated with Donald Trump stands in tension with what are commonly understood as Europe’s core values: democracy, peace, civil society participation, social balance, and millennia old cultural traditions.

Munich: The West as a community of fate, not a legal order

In Munich, Rubio does not portray NATO as a pragmatic alliance. He presents “Western civilization” as a quasi natural unity, bound together by references to “Christian faith,” “heritage and culture,” and the ethnically charged notion of “ancestry.” In this narrative, Europe’s pluralism appears not as strength but as weakness. Migration is stylized as an existential threat, although Europe has long been shaped by displacement and exchange across peoples and cultures, forming the mosaic that defines the continent. Climate policy is sidelined and dismissed as sectarianism. International institutions are framed as self disempowerment. Why adhere to the UN, EU, WTO, WHO, or other bodies if the nation already knows better?

The fascist quality lies not in a single insult but in the dramaturgy. First, a culturally homogeneous community is asserted. Second, its boundaries are declared a matter of survival. Third, a moral state of emergency follows, in which counterarguments appear naive or treacherous. This structure explains the resonance with European far right agendas that have long warned of “civilizational erasure” and the “demise of Christian culture.” The Guardian explicitly identified this connection, describing Rubio’s offer as friendship “on white, Christian, MAGA terms.”

The rhetoric serves a function. It shifts the axis of conflict away from concrete policy disputes toward fundamental identity questions. Those who speak in this register do not build coalitions. They sort people. That is the core.

Budapest: A campaign speech at state expense

On 16 February 2026, Rubio stood next to Orbán in Budapest and made statements that in established democracies would be viewed as overreach. Trump, he said, is “strongly” committed to Orbán’s success. “Your success is also our success.” It is in the “national interest” of the United States that Hungary succeed, “especially as long as you are Prime Minister and leader of this country.”

This is not routine diplomacy. It is political intervention. It targets a country where Orbán, according to recent polls, trails Péter Magyar’s TISZA party by eight to ten percentage points, appearing vulnerable in a space where Fidesz has sought invulnerability since 2010.

The subtext is clear: Washington does not want Hungary, it wants Orbán. Orbán receives what he most urgently needs domestically, the image of international backing that counters the narrative of an isolated government. The message suggested is not that Orbán stands alone, but that Brussels does.

What Trump wants from Hungary

Hungary is a small country. Yet within the EU it holds leverage disproportionate to its economic weight: the capacity to block. In a system that requires unanimity on key issues, obstruction becomes strategic capital. Orbán has refined this role, acting as a brake on EU policy toward Ukraine, as a persistent challenger on rule of law matters, and as a political importer of Kremlin narratives.

For Trump, this is useful because it weakens the EU as a geopolitical actor without Washington having to confront Europe directly. Supporting forces that challenge European cohesion from within achieves the same effect. This concern has been voiced openly in Brussels and echoed in international analysis. The Guardian wrote that Rubio’s position reinforces fears that the United States seeks to promote “disunity.”

There is also ideological value. Orbán provides a European test version of the MAGA culture war, complete with anti woke measures, anti migration rhetoric, and Brussels cast as adversary. Rubio supplies the American register, replacing party slogans with the language of Western civilization.

What Hungary wants from Trump

Orbán needs two things: legitimacy and time.

Legitimacy, because his system has for years been described not only as illiberal but as institutionally distorted. Independent MP Ákos Hadházy has referred to it as a hybrid regime comparable to Turkey: elections exist, yet structural dominance over resources, public discourse, and media remains entrenched, backed by a state apparatus aligned with the governing party. For such a system, recognition from Washington functions as domestic currency. It compensates for what Brussels no longer provides. The narrative of a hostile EU has lost some of its force.

Time, because the election campaign is unusually confrontational. Orbán portrays the opposition as a foreign construct, speaks of forces in Brussels directing events, announces action against “pseudo civil organizations” and “bought journalists,” and refers to a “machinery of repression” to be dismantled after the April election. Rubio’s appearance in Budapest aligns with this dynamic. Publicly courting Orbán as “leader of this country” normalizes the personalization of power that characterizes Hungary’s internal political order.

The deal behind the posture

The underlying arrangement is straightforward and cynical.

Hungary presents itself as both ideological frontier and institutional lever: an EU member state able to block EU decisions while waging an official culture war against woke and globalist forces. The United States gains influence over EU dynamics without being an EU actor.

Orbán secures the narrative he needs for his campaign: that his policies are not the idiosyncrasies of an isolated provincial leader but part of a new Western axis. Rubio provides the endorsement, Munich the stage, Budapest the images.

Those who hesitate to call this fascist are free to choose another term. What alternative more precisely captures the combination of civilizational myth, internal enemy designation, anti pluralism, and person centered aesthetics of power is unclear to the Pester Lloyd. As Marina Weisband argued, the problem is not the harshness of the word but the comfort in avoiding it.

Sources: MTI.hu, ORF.at, The Guardian, Deutschlandfunk @mediasres, Deutschlandfunk audio commentary by Marina Weisband, US Department of State
Photo: Secretary of State Marco Rubio with Viktor Orbán, US Department of State.

Budapest. For months, opposition leader Peter Magyar and his Tisza party were widely portrayed as a one man project driven by rhetorical momentum rather than institutional depth. Now, ahead of the 12 April parliamentary elections, Magyar has begun presenting a broader team of business leaders, diplomats and former officials, several of whom once moved within circles close to Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party.

Magyar, a 44 year old lawyer and former Fidesz member, entered the political arena in February 2024 and quickly drew large crowds to protests critical of the government. After taking over the small Tisza party, he led it to the top of several opinion polls. Yet questions persisted over how a potential change of government would be staffed and whether Tisza possessed sufficient administrative experience.

From one man movement to expert cabinet

In recent weeks, Tisza has unveiled a number of prominent figures. Among them are Istvan Kapitany, a former senior executive at Shell International Petroleum and past chairman of the Hungarian Managers’ Association, and Anita Orban, an economist and energy specialist who served as Hungary’s Special Envoy for Energy Security between 2010 and 2015. Former Chief of the General Staff Romulusz Ruszin Szendi has also been associated with the party. Political scientist Gabor Török told the news portal 24.hu that Tisza’s central weakness had long been the perception of a one man structure - the involvement of figures such as Kapitany and Anita Orban, he argued, signals governing ambitions beyond mere protest politics.

Daniel Rona, speaking to Telex, suggested that established business actors joining Tisza reflect a belief that political change in Hungary is no longer implausible.

Kapitany’s career spans Hungary’s transition to a market economy in the late 1980s through senior international roles at Shell. He previously received the Hungarian Order of Merit. After announcing his advisory role for Tisza in January 2025, leading Fidesz politicians criticised him as representing international business interests rather than national priorities.

Anita Orban, who once belonged to a more Euro Atlantic oriented wing within Fidesz, has faced similar attacks since signalling cooperation with Tisza. Government figures have accused her of acting against Hungary’s energy interests.

Programme presented online

On 7 February 2026, Tisza presented its 240 page election manifesto in an hour long YouTube broadcast rather than at a large scale rally. The programme promises to restore rule of law standards, reposition Hungary as a reliable partner within the European Union and NATO, and implement structural reforms in health care and education. At the same time, it signals continuity in several areas, including family and pension support schemes introduced under Fidesz and a restrictive migration policy.

On foreign policy, the document rejects rapid EU accession for Ukraine but calls for normalized relations and a gradual reduction away of energy dependence on Russia by 2035. Magyar has stated that hundreds of experts contributed to the drafting process, framing the manifesto as evidence that Tisza is preparing for governance rather than protest.

Escalating campaign rhetoric

The campaign climate has grown sharper. Pro government voices continue to question the cohesion and credibility of Tisza’s leadership team. At the same time, Magyar has claimed on social media that compromising material may be released against him. A website using the domain name of Tisza Vice Chairman Mark Radnai, though not operated by him, has appeared online with the message “Coming soon” displayed above an empty bedroom scene.

Whether Tisza’s broadened personnel base will translate into electoral advantage remains uncertain. What is clear is that the opposition is attempting to move beyond a personality driven phase and present itself as a structured alternative to the long entrenched Fidesz system.

Sources: MTI, Wikipedia, 24.hu, Telex
Photo: AP, AFP, MTI, Wikipedia