BUDAPEST - Hungary’s centre-right Tisza party leads Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s ruling Fidesz ahead of a parliamentary election on April 12, a poll showed on Thursday.
Nationalist Orban, Donald Trump's biggest cheerleader in Europe, faces the biggest challenge to his rule in 16 years, although the large number of undecided voters means the outcome of the election is uncertain.
Tisza, led by former government insider Peter Magyar, had the support of 41% of decided voters, while 35% backed Fidesz, the poll by Publicus Institute showed.
The survey showed 36% support for Tisza among all voters, with Fidesz backed by 30%. Some 24% of respondents said they had not decided how they would vote.
The far-right Our Homeland party could become a kingmaker after the election. Surveys by two independent pollsters showed that it is the only party besides Tisza and Fidesz with a chance of winning the 5% of votes required to enter parliament.
Our Homeland, which won 6.7% in a European Parliament election in 2024, is part of the far-right Europe of Sovereign Nations group, which includes Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland.
Our Homeland (Mi Hazank) campaigns on an anti-EU, anti-migration and anti-vaccination platform and says it will fight corruption and crime.
Laszlo Toroczkai, the 48-year-old leader of Our Homeland, rejects being categorised as far-right and says he considers his party “sovereignist”, as opposed to globalist forces.
Our Homeland attracts openly antisemitic and anti-Roma voters and should certainly be seen as a far-right party, said Robert Laszlo, an election expert at the think-tank Political Capital, though he said they were a minority in the party.
He said Our Homeland had also attracted moderate voters through conspiracy theories related to vaccines during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“It also represents ordinary people in rural areas who feel that none of the larger parties represents them,” he told Reuters.
Toroczkai has ruled out joining a coalition with Fidesz or Tisza, telling Reuters during a campaign event: “My goal is that Mi Hazank gets in a position where neither Fidesz nor Tisza … has absolute power.”
But political analysts have suggested Our Homeland might support a minority Fidesz government informally from the opposition if required for Orban to be able to govern.
