Compromise has always been important in politics. Coalition governments or parties, when trying to draft new legislation, often give up some of their values to achieve their most important goals and to work together. Parties also cooperate when they choose the best candidate in a primary election, as Hungarian opposition parties did in 2026.
Some people might dislike that their party cooperates with a party they despise, but this is often necessary. Otherwise, a country would not be able to function properly. This is the best way to avoid permanent antagonization. Compromise has many different forms, and in this article, I will examine the situation in Hungary one year before the 2026 parliamentary election.
When one actor believes another to be untrustworthy, cooperation can become difficult, even if it is for the better. For the past 15 years, Hungarian liberals hated the incumbent Fidesz government and would have been open to vote for nearly any alternative to remove them from power. Now with Péter Magyar, an ex-Fidesz member, emerging in politics, they might feel hope again. But what about those who mistrust Magyar as much as they distrust Fidesz? What options do they have? How should parties respond when their existence is threatened by a rising challenger?
To understand the Hungarian situation, we must see other examples where new political force has changed the political landscape. Over the past decade, many political outsiders have won elections around the world, including Donald Trump in the US, Volodimir Zelenskyy in Ukraine, and Emmanuel Macron in France. Péter Magyar is an outsider too. Even though he was part of the inner circles of Fidesz, he did not compete in national elections.
I will compare the rise of Péter Magyar to Macron because, in my opinion, Macron’s journey most closely resembles Magyar’s. Trump did not reform the political spectrum as no third party arose and there are still two big parties (the Democrats and the Republicans) in the race, while Zelenskyy’s story is a whole different one with the Russo-Ukrainian war. This is why I will compare Péter Magyar’s rise to Macron’s to understand what happens if a new political force sweeps away the past parties.
Magyar and Macron
Macron was a member of the French political elite and was finance minister in an unpopular French government. He resigned with a great sense of timing and founded his own movement. It gained popularity swiftly, and in 2017, he won the presidential election. Using a centrist-populist campaign, he said “everything and nothing”. He stated that he is neither leftist nor rightist in a country where people are very tired of their politicians. The incumbent government had an approval rating of 4% at its lowest. The far-right also used this unrest to gain popularity.
Macron was able to win in France where traditionally the two big blocks, at that time the Republicans and Union for Popular Movement, dominated for years. After Macron’s victory, the two traditional blocks weakened and needed some time to recover. A new day began in French politics.
Magyar’s rise bears some striking similarities as he was also a member of the governing party and left at the right time when the Hungarian president pardoned Endre K. who helped cover up the crimes of a pedophile. Magyar founded a political movement, which focused on replacing the ruling political elite. He always describes himself neither as a rightist nor as a leftist, but rather as a Hungarian. This centrist-populist campaign has proven effective so far, with independent pollsters indicating that Magyar currently leads the field.
Interestingly, Hungary has also seen the rise of a far-right party, “Our Homeland,” since the COVID-19 pandemic. This party hovers around the 5% parliamentary threshold, which means they are unlikely to win the election. However, Péter Magyar argues that Fidesz is trying to get closer to “Our Homeland”. So, in case of a bad election result, Fidesz would be able to form a coalition with them
Nonetheless, the journey is not finished yet. Magyar has big boots to fill if he wants to achieve what Macron did. He must win the 2026 elections before starting his reforms. Yet, it is very hard to see how big his chance is to achieve that. The Fidesz government has once again redrawn the voting districts and as more than half of the parliamentary seats are decided in individual constituencies, it’s very hard to see who would gain the most seats right now. However, there is a possibility that Hungary will have a new government in 2026. But what options does a Hungarian voter have?
When Voter Has to Make a Compromise
Hungary uses a single-round electoral system. The parliamentary election takes one day. This strengthens the strongest party and encourages smaller parties to cooperate. People might also be forced to vote tactically. Both Fidesz and Tisza have a support of around 37%. Their support may vary in individual constituencies, but they will most likely still be the strongest parties in each of them, as things stand. If the non-Tisza opposition stays fragmented, the voters might only have two options in the individual constituencies that can realistically get into the parliament. Fidesz and Tisza.
In a two-round system, people can choose whoever they sympathize with the most in the first round and can vote tactically in the second one. The example below shows how it works.
Let’s say, that in the 2022 French Presidential election, a socialist voted for Mélenchon in Ardeche. In the first round, Le Pen wins in Ardeche, with 25% of the votes. Mélenchon – the socialist voter’s preferred candidate – is eliminated from the race as he came third overall. In the second round, the socialist votes for Macron. Even though he does not like Macron, he still sees the president as a better alternative than Le Pen. Ultimately, Macron wins, and the socialist voter had both the chance to vote for his candidate in the first round and both to decide who the next president should be in the second round.
In Hungary, voters do not have this choice. They have to make a compromise in the first round already. If the opposition stays fragmented, Fidesz can easily win the elections just because they are the strongest party in each of the constituencies. This happened in 2014 and 2018 too.
If Hungary had a two-round system, as it did before 2012, opposition parties would not always be forced to form alliances and cooperate, as Fidesz would always face the strongest party in the second round, rather than small, fragmented elements. Fidesz has had the power for 15 years, partly because of the inability of right- and left-wing opposition parties to cooperate and the opposition voters’ unwillingness to vote for a mixed coalition. When the parties did cooperate in 2022, it ended very badly. One of the bastions that would defend democracy is a two-round election system. After the Orbán era, it must be introduced again.
Cooperation of Parties and Their Failure
Due to the system, parties are forced to make compromises, but for 2026, it is hard to see how it will unfold. Hungary has a parliamentary threshold of 5%. Right now, three parties are close to the threshold other than Tisza and Fidesz: MKKP, DK, and Our Homeland. These smaller parties are still close to 5% and are not guaranteed to be in parliament in 2026. Furthermore, in two-party systems, third parties often poll at higher numbers before the election campaign and lose most of their support during the final months. RFK Jr. in the US polled at 16% in March and got only 0.5% in the November election. In the end, he endorsed Trump, yet, his support still would have been very low even if he did not endorse him.
Tisza will be in the parliament in 2026, but some liberals have a negative view of Péter Magyar. Beginning with his Fidesz past to his unclear stance on major issues, his personality might also demotivate undecided to vote for him. That said, he promises things that the liberals have been protesting for in the last decade. He pledges to democratize Hungary, restore the rule of law, and account the Fidesz government for their offenses. If Péter Magyar wins, he must keep his promises regarding democratization. He has a big tent political alliance behind him, made up of liberals, socialists, conservatives, etc. If he does not deliver on this matter, they will leave him, and his support will rapidly fall apart. His supporters will migrate to other parties.
Péter Magyar has repeatedly stressed, that he will not enter a coalition government with any opposition parties, because of his promise to replace the whole political landscape. To do that, he does not want to cooperate with any parties that were active before 2024. This can be criticized, but so far, as the polls show, it works. Whether it can be kept up in the long run is yet to be seen.
According to Magyar, only his party is capable of beating Fidesz and votes for other parties are wasted ones. The opposition can also lose important seats where they cannot agree on which candidate should run. Péter Magyar does not want to take part in primaries as that would count as cooperating with the unpopular opposition parties. But when the main goal is to win the elections, the decision to act on their own might have serious consequences. Some popular non-Tisza opposition MPs already announced their intention to run and Fidesz could win constituencies, where an embedded long-time MP and a Tisza candidate cannot agree on who to withdraw. As the proverb says, while two dogs are fighting for a bone, a third runs away with it.
Perhaps the Two-Tailed Dog Party (MKKP) is the only party which has a chance to cooperate with Tisza, as they were not part of the failed 2022 opposition alliance, but no known discussions have happened about that at the time of writing the article. The leader of MKKP stressed, that they would be interested in cooperation, but Tisza have not changed their minds yet.
As of now, none of the parties that participated in the 2022 coalition have decided not to run, with MSZP, DK, and Momentum already announcing their intention to compete in the elections. As I have stated above, it is unlikely that any of them would get a chance to cooperate with Tisza. The alliance of these parties with each other is also unlikely, because in Hungary, if two parties run together, they would have to reach a 10% threshold instead of 5% to get into the parliament. Right now, no combination would be able to reach 10%. However, they could create a new formation to avoid the 10% threshold, but given the failures of such coalitions in the last years, it’s unlikely.
On the one hand, in the Hungarian election system, Fidesz can be only beaten if one strong party faces them alone, but this can only happen with coordination and making compromises. It remains to be seen how the opposition parties can maximize their chances of winning. Tisza’s strategy of not cooperating works so far, while non-Tisza opposition parties are not thinking about withdrawing from the elections as they feel they represent groups that Tisza does not. However, the gap between Tisza and Fidesz is not big enough for opposition voters to be confident about a change in government in 2026. The unwillingness of parties to cooperate can lead to another Fidesz victory in 2026.
On the other hand, the opposition already tried an alliance in 2022 between most mainstream opposition parties. The parties and their candidate for PM, Péter Márki-Zay, could not work together properly, and the alliance was overwhelmingly defeated by Fidesz. Why would Tisza be motivated to enter an alliance with parties that have already shown that they are unable to cooperate?
What Is next for liberalism in Hungary?
The polls show that there is a possibility that the parliament from 2026 onwards will only contain quasi-right-wing parties. If this were to happen, it is important to understand that support of parties changes much more easily than support of ideologies. Support for conservatism, liberalism, or socialism will not disappear from one day to another. We can see, that even if it varies, these 3 classical thoughts are still visibly present in each age group of Hungary.
Today, some opposition voters might feel miserable about their party’s freefall, but it does not mean that liberalism or left-wing politics is finished in Hungary. If we look at examples around Europe, we can see that a mainstream political ideology cannot be eradicated. In Germany, the SPD has received its smallest share of votes since 1887, but they came back many times in the last 120 years, as did the FDP. They will reevaluate their positions and get their support back.
When Macron won the presidency in 2017, the conservative and socialist parties received their lowest vote shares in the fifth republic. But since then they have risen again. This time, the left-wing reinvented itself under the name of “New Popular Front”, while Le Pen has moderated on some issues to become more attractive to center-right voters.
Some Hungarian parties may disappear after 2026 but their voters will need new parties that represent the same values. The ideas will not disappear and these new parties will either be a reformed version of the ex-parties or new ones, which represent the same values and with new faces. We have learned throughout the history of democracy, that making compromises is hard, and you must give up some values for the better. Either Tisza or the other opposition parties will be forced to do that to give a better future to Hungary. The party that finally does it, will contribute to the greater cause of building a freer, more democratic, and better Hungary.