Hungary’s opposition chief Peter Magyar was carrying a standard Hungarian-style white shirt and a white waistcoat embroidered with brilliant blue flowers when he and a number of other dozen supporters walked throughout the Hungarian–Romanian border at about 9 a.m. on Saturday morning.
As they continued their stroll via northwestern Romania, folks got here out to talk 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 town of Oradea.
Later, whereas addressing a crowd of a number of hundred folks exterior the town’s fortress, Magyar stated: “the countdown has begun. Hungarians wish to be a part of Europe. They’ve had sufficient of dictatorship and division. They need peace, calm and prosperity.”
Why did Magyar stroll to this a part of Romania?
Oradea was the ultimate cease on Magyar’s 11-day, million-step stroll, the newest in his collection of high-profile political actions within the midst of an unprecedented marketing campaign of hate and agitation by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his authorities towards anybody who thinks otherwise from themselves.
Orban accuses Magyar and his Tisza (Respect and Freedom) Get together of working for the Ukrainian secret service and being traitors, with out offering any proof to again up these claims.
Magyar stated he wished to take heed to the considerations and troubles of Hungarians alongside the way in which and that the stroll marked the start of the tip of the Orban period. It was the primary stroll of its variety in Hungary.
Magyar’s stroll started within the Hungarian capital on Could 14 and took him over 300 kilometers (186 miles) southeast to Oradea, which is house to many ethnic Hungarian Romanians.
Ethnic Hungarians in Hungary’s neighboring nations who maintain twin citizenship usually are not solely an vital voter group in Hungarian parliamentary elections, they’re additionally historically of immense emotional significance for Hungarian society.
That is notably true of the ethnic Hungarians in Transylvania and different areas of Romania.
Historic ties
For a lot of Hungarians, the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, which noticed two-thirds of Hungarian territory given to Hungary’s neighbors after World Warfare I, stays a significant trauma. Virtually in a single day, giant elements of Hungary’s inhabitants grew to become residents of different nations.
The ethnic Hungarians of Transylvania have a repute in Hungary as dogged freedom fighters and preservers of all issues Hungarian.
One of many issues that triggered the tip of the communist dictatorship in Hungary in 1989/90 had been protests towards the plans of Romania’s communist dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, to raze as much as 7,000 villages in Romania.
Many ethnic Hungarians would have been straight affected by these plans. Mass demonstrations towards the Romanian regime and in solidarity with ethnic Hungarians in Romania started in Hungary in 1988.
Magyar forward within the polls
Though votes solid in Hungarian elections by ethnic Hungarians in neighboring nations account for a mean of simply two seats in Hungary’s parliament, no politician who needs to win an election can afford to disregard this voter group and even go towards it.
Latest opinion polls counsel that Peter Magyar and the Tisza Get together would simply defeat Orban and Fidesz in a parliamentary election. The following one is because of happen in spring 2026.
Magyar’s success thus far is all the way down to the truth that he denounces widespread corruption within the Orban system and the poor state of the nation’s public infrastructure, together with its schooling and healthcare methods.
This appeals to many in Hungary who’re uninterested in Orban after 16 uninterrupted years of his rule.
Orban’s large mistake
However Magyar is now widening his political technique.
Initially, he’s paying extra consideration to the problem of ethnic Hungarians in neighboring nations. He has been helped on this respect by a significant political mistake Orban made within the runup to Romania’s latest presidential election.
Orban gave his backing to the pro-Russian hard-right candidate George Simion, who is thought for violent, anti-Hungarian actions prior to now.
In 2019, for instance, Simion and his supporters wrecked Hungarian graves in a graveyard for Hungarian and Romanian troopers in Transylvania. The assault got here as a large shock to the ethnic Hungarian neighborhood.
Orban’s backing of Simion put him at odds with the management of the UDMR, the political occasion of Romania’s Hungarian minority, which is in any other case loyally aligned with the Hungarian chief.
Report numbers of ethnic Hungarians in Romania voted for Simion’s pro-European opponent, Nicusor Dan, serving to him win the election.
Concentrate on Hungarian minorities
Peter Magyar made political capital out of this throughout his speech in Oradea.
He portrayed Orban as somebody who fairly simply places political pursuits forward of the welfare of the Hungarian neighborhood in neighboring nations — even supposing it was Orban’s personal occasion that anchored the safety of this group within the Hungarian structure.
Orban additionally has shut ties to Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, each of whom have an extended custom of aggressive insurance policies in direction of their nations’ minorities and specifically their Hungarian minorities.
Together with his marketing campaign towards Ukraine becoming a member of the EU, Orban has additionally consciously positioned himself towards the pursuits of Ukraine’s Hungarian minority, whose members are strongly in favor of Ukraine’s EU accession.
Poisoned ambiance
However Magyar is making a concerted effort to make sure that his speeches usually are not simply constructed on anti-Orban messages. He consciously makes use of optimistic messages and sometimes makes use of phrases equivalent to “peace,” “reconciliation” and “unity.”
The explanation for that is that after over a decade-and-a-half of Orban rule, Hungarian society is battling what has turn out to be a particularly polarized, poisoned public ambiance.
Many Hungarians have firsthand expertise of the pressure political disputes placed on friendships and household relationships.
Is change imminent?
It stays to be seen whether or not Magyar’s message will ring a bell with ethnic Hungarians dwelling in Hungary’s neighboring nations. In any case, Orban’s authorities helps ethnic Hungarians in Transylvania alone to the tune of a number of hundred million euro a yr.
On Saturday, not less than, it regarded as if most of those that turned out to listen to Magyar communicate in Oradea had been on his aspect. After his speech, he posed for numerous selfies and spoke to locals.
Most individuals appeared curious, saying that they did not know Magyar very properly, however that it was time for a change on the prime in Hungary.
At his press convention on Saturday, Magyar repeated his mantra: “That is the beginning of one thing new.” He would possibly properly be proper.
This text was initially printed in German and tailored by Aingeal Flanagan.