1.) The context: Ever since 1990 Hungary always had between around 5-10 parties but in terms of popularity it's usually been a race between the biggest 🔴 left-wing and the biggest 🟠 right-wing party (the latter being Orbán's). I'll just call them "the left" and "the right" for simplicity's sake.

2.) The history: The left won in 2002 and 2006 but only barely (1% more votes than the right) but in 2006 shortly after the election there was a major scandal when then prime minister Gyurcsány, in a speech addressed to his party in private, pointed out that they haven't achieved anything while also continuously deceived the people. He used rather explicit language to phrase this, including the infamous "We fucked it up. Not a little. Big time." An audio recording leaked and this, combined with the already widespread dissatisfaction with his government (later the 2008 economic crisis also didn't help), has led to mass protests and the left has lost most of its credibility, causing the right to suddenly become very popular, win the 2010 elections with a 2/3 majority, and stay popular by constantly villifying the left and demonising Gyurcsány. Which has been easy for them to do because of the scandal and especially because Gyurcsány is still in politics and still the most influential people. He left the left to found another 🔵 left so there are now two major left-wing parties. Alone they have no chance of winning so they often join forces but they remain unsuccessful. They even joined with some minor right-wing parties out of desperation multiple times. Orbán and co. also did some gerrymandering circa 2011 to benefit them in elections.

3.) The present: In 2020 Péter Magyar left "the right" ( that's been growing ever more far-right) and founded TISZA, a "center-right" party that's been rapidly gaining popularity since 2024 and right now it's probably the strongest opposition party. So the 2026 elections are looking to be very interesting as Orbán and co. have the biggest chance yet of not getting their 2/3 majority of seats that lets them to do as they please currently.

Update 2025-05-08: Hold on, Gyurcsány is retiring?! Wow.

Orbán's government wants to pass a law that would let them shut down any media outlet that gets funds from abroad and that they deem to be a "danger to Hungary's sovereignty."

The far right government is panicking because for the first time since 2010 there's a party that can actually challenge them. And if they can somehow fabricate evidence of that other party getting foreign funds, this might also let the government disqualify the challenging party in next year's elections... Because otherwise the challenging party has been really good with transparency about their funds which basically all comes from sympathisers within the country.

Article (in English)