{"id":17573,"date":"2026-04-09T02:44:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T02:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/17573\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T02:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T02:44:08","slug":"what-peter-magyar-learned-from-the-last-guy-to-lose-to-viktor-orban-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/17573\/","title":{"rendered":"What P\u00e9ter Magyar learned from the last guy to lose to Viktor Orb\u00e1n \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cPeople see that it\u2019s not a functioning government, that\u2019s what changed \u2026 people are very angry, they hate Fidesz so much, this was not the case four years ago,\u201d M\u00e1rki-Zay said. <\/p>\n<p>Strict communications control<\/p>\n<p>One of the most important lessons Magyar learned has translated into his strategic positioning on Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>The lesson relates to a catastrophic gaffe by M\u00e1rki-Zay that is widely blamed for his heavy loss in 2022. While early polls had suggested a tight race, Orb\u00e1n ultimately won by a massive 49.3 percent versus 32.7 percent for his rival.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-1239726275-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8238290\"  \/>Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n celebrates on stage with members of the Fidesz party at their election base, \u2018Balna\u2019 building in Budapest in April 2022. | Attila Kisbenedek\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>As tensions mounted between Russia and Ukraine in February that year, just before Moscow invaded its neighbor, M\u00e1rki-Zay told independent outlet Partiz\u00e1n on Feb. 23 that Hungary could support its neighbor militarily alongside its allies.<\/p>\n<p>When pressed on whether that meant boots on the ground, he said: \u201cWell, if NATO decides so, then even soldiers,\u201d before adding \u201cbut right now there\u2019s no talk of that at all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Unluckily for him, Russian tanks poured into Ukraine the next day, and pro-government media twisted his words to accuse him of wanting to drag Hungary into the war and to send the country\u2019s children to die in Ukraine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cPeople see that it\u2019s not a functioning government, that\u2019s what changed \u2026 people are very angry, they hate&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[132],"tags":[2034,250,5268,489,1664,279,1065,5019,421,1104,422,13559,5964,1072,934,13560,1086,329,2289,1435,330,350,185,1437],"class_list":{"0":"post-17573","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-viktor-orban","8":"tag-borders","9":"tag-china","10":"tag-construction","11":"tag-corruption","12":"tag-courts","13":"tag-donald-tusk","14":"tag-elections","15":"tag-health-care","16":"tag-hungarian-elections-2026","17":"tag-hungarian-politics","18":"tag-hungary","19":"tag-janos-lazar","20":"tag-mayors","21":"tag-media","22":"tag-peter-magyar","23":"tag-peter-marki-zay","24":"tag-rights","25":"tag-russia","26":"tag-services","27":"tag-tanks","28":"tag-ukraine","29":"tag-viktor-orban","30":"tag-war","31":"tag-weapons"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116372456335706725","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}