Péter Magyar: Hungary’s next leader energised voters but is ‘a dark horse’

Ex-government insider turned Orbán critic is authentic and passionate but his proposed policies are short on details As a child growing up in Budapest, Péter Magyar had a poster of Viktor Orbán – at the time a leading figure in the country’s pro-democracy movement – hanging above his bed. Orbán was one of several political figures who adorned his bedroom, Magyar told a podcast last year, hinting at his excitement over the changes sweeping the country after the collapse of communism. Now Magyar, 45, has been the driving force behind the ousting of Orbán, whose 16 years in power transformed the country into a “petri dish for illiberalism”. Few could have predicted the meteoric rise of Magyar and his Tisza party. “He has built an opposition movement at amazing speed,” said Gábor Győri of Policy Solutions, a Budapest-based political research institute. “Never, since the history of this post-transition Hungary, have we seen a party rise this quickly.” Conversations with those who know Magyar often alternate between admiration and antipathy. Many praise the tremendous movement he has built and the discipline he has shown as he crisscrosses the country, giving up