Prime Minister Viktor Orban vowed to fight against NGOs he called a “shadow army,” while opposition leader Peter Magyar spoke of a coming “Hungarian spring.”
On Saturday, tens of thousands of Hungarians gathered in Budapest for rallies held by Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his opposition challenger, Peter Magyar, formerly of Fidesz.
The rallies, organized by Orban’s Fidesz Party and the opposition center-right Tisza Party, coincided with Hungary’s March 15 national holiday, which commemorates the 1848 revolution against Austrian rule. Both parties used the occasion to garner support ahead of the April 2026 parliamentary elections.
Reuters reported that the Tisza event drew over 50,000 protesters. Social media posts showed large crowds waving national flags and party banners, filling numerous streets in Budapest.
Demonstrators chanted, “Tisza is flooding,” a reference to both the opposition party and a major Hungarian river. The Tisza Party, established in 2020, has experienced a recent surge in popularity, reportedly exceeding Fidesz by approximately 10%, according to a Telex report this week.
Addressing his supporters in Budapest, Orban stated that it was time to eliminate what he characterized as a “shadow army” of media outlets and NGOs that receive foreign funding and allegedly serve EU interests.
“We will dismantle the financial machine that has used corrupt dollars to buy politicians, judges, journalists, pseudo-NGOs, and political activists. We will eliminate the entire shadow army,” Orban declared.
Orban, a strong opponent of Western military aid to Kiev, also asserted that the Ukraine conflict was being used as a tool of “colonization” by what he termed a global liberal “empire.”
“The instrument of colonization is war. The rulers of Europe decided that Ukraine should continue the war, whatever it costs,” he told the crowd. Similar to a proposal by Magyar, Orban stated he would hold a public poll to allow Hungarians to decide whether they support Ukraine’s EU membership.