Critical briefing: Tisza

The Hungarian elections have inspired a lot of discourse about the defeat of Viktor Orbán and very little discourse about the triumph of Péter Magyar. Of course, this is partly a result of the length of Orbán’s rule. But it is also a consequence of the fact that almost no one knows who Magyar is.

So, who is Péter Magyar? And what is his party, Tisza?

Tisza — the name being a portmanteau of the Hungarian words tisztelet (respect) and szabadság (freedom), and a reference to the nation’s second largest river — was founded in 2020 and registered in 2022. It was a very marginal conservative party with policies like “raise the minimum pension” and “stop migration”.

In the 2022 parliamentary elections, the party fielded no candidates at all.

Tisza became a major force in Hungarian elections when Péter Magyar joined the party. Magyar, who has a legal background, had been a member of Viktor Orbán’s party Fidesz. More significantly, he had been married to the Hungarian Minister of Justice, Judit Varga, from 2006 to 2023.

In 2024, Varga resigned, along with Hungarian president Katalin Novák, after both were exposed as having signed a pardon for a convicted paedophile who had been a director of a state-run children’s home. Magyar resigned from Fidesz, accusing Orbán of “hiding behind women’s skirts”.

“For a long time I believed in an idea, a national, sovereign, civic Hungary,” wrote Magyar in a much-quoted statement, “But in recent years, I have slowly and finally realized that all of this is really just a political product.”

Magyar became a ferocious critic of alleged government corruption. His ex-wife responded to his anti-Orbán activities by accusing him of domestic abuse. Magyar denied this. Undaunted, he led various anti-government demonstrations, which attracted tens of thousands of Hungarians. He was also chosen to lead Tisza.

Magyar has profited from good timing. He is also a photogenic man who has performed well on social media. His politics are more mysterious. He has called himself a “critical pro-European and a conservative liberal”.

He is not the sort of liberal that anti-Orbán Westerners might want him to be. While he has said that he will “move away from the current, uncritically friendly approach towards Russia”, he has also said that it will take time to stop buying Russian fuel, and he has criticised the Ukrainian approach to Hungarian minorities. He has sometimes tried to outflank Orbán on sovereignty, saying that Fidesz have brought in too many guest workers, and even questionably saying that migrants have been stealing ducks from Hungarian ponds. Still, it remains to be seen if the pro-EU Magyar will maintain his more right-wing opinions or be swept along by European orthodoxy — not least when he has emphasised the importance of unlocking EU funds.

Who else is in Tisza? A government has yet to be selected, of course, but we know about some important figures. These include:

— Anita Orbán. Dr Orbán is no relation. (Perhaps Hungarian politics always needs an Orbán. One of Orbán’s advisers was another unrelated Orbán.) Tisza’s Orbán is a former high-level businesswoman who has worked as an ambassador under a Fidesz government and has long been considered one of the most influential women in Hungary. She looks set to represent the nation abroad.

— István Kapitány. Mr Kapitány is a former Shell executive who had a long and successful business career before joining Tisza to serve as an economics expert. According to one profile, Kapitány is “a firm believer in meritocracy”, but his international work might make him inexperienced when it comes to the Hungarian scene.

— Romulusz Ruszin‑Szendi. Dr Ruszin‑Szendi is a former Chief of the Hungarian Defence Staff, who was dismissed by President Novák in 2023. Ruszin‑Szendi was a decorated officer and has become Tisza’s military expert. He was a firm critic of Orbán’s alleged attempts to turn military matters into a “political show”.

In its manifesto, Tisza promises a centrist agenda built around cutting taxes, unlocking EU funds, spending more on healthcare, and clamping down on corruption. It hopes to move closer to Europe, especially Poland — with which Hungary has had chilly relations. Magyar has suggested that Polish ex-ministers who sought refuge in Hungary after being accused of crimes in Poland will not be welcome. He has also proposed the strengthening of the so-called Visegrad Group of Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

With a two-thirds supermajority, Tisza will also have the chance to amend the constitution, and have promised to introduce limits — applied retroactively to block Orbán from running again — and restore checks and balances. Whether they will be successful in removing Fidesz influence from Hungarian institutions, or whether they will themselves succumb to the corruption they stood to erase, remains to be seen. You can call Tisza many things but “known quantity” is not one of them.