Shishelina Lyubov Nikolaevna – Sc.D. in History, Chief Researcher, Head of Department of Central and Eastern Europe, Institute of Europe RAS
The article analyzes the fifth elections to the European Parliament (EP) in Hungary held in June 2024. Since the turnout in the previous European elections was quite low, in order to save public funds, it was decided to combine European elections with elections of local government deputies. The 2024 campaign took place in unfavourable conditions for the ruling party, which was caused not only by the recent resignation of President Katalin Novák, but also by the emergence in the camp of the Hungarian opposition of a new figure, who grew up partly on intra-family and partly on intra-party grounds – Péter Magyar, whose former wife was the Minister of Justice in the government of Viktor Orbán. Magyar was enthusiastically welcomed in Hungary by opponents of Orban and his FIDESZ party and has attracted increased international attention as hopes for the former opposition fade. However, as the elections results showed, the new oppositionist, who began his political career with a scandal, caused only minimal damage to the ruling party, and his main victim was the already weak Hungarian opposition. Having failed to shake the position of the FIDESZ leader, Magyar and his political party TISZA occupied almost the entire niche of the left-liberal opposition. In the 2024 elections, they became the second largest political force to enter the European Parliament from Hungary – in the entire history of European elections, no Hungarian opposition party has ever gained as many votes as TISZA. However, having lost only one parliamentary mandate compared to the least successful of his previous election campaigns (European elections 2004), Viktor Orbán achieved a convincing victory at the international level, creating a new political faction in the European Parliament, Patriots for Europe, which became the third largest in the EP. Following the European elections, deputies from Hungary are represented in the EP in four factions: Patriots for Europe (11), the European People’s Party (7), the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (2) and Europe of Sovereign Nations (1). The author believes that it is too early to draw conclusions about the political prospects of Péter Magyar. Over the three decades of post-socialist development in Hungary, politicians have repeatedly appeared who have tried to challenge the permanent leader of FIDESZ, but they lacked the fervor for a long political struggle and, what is even more important, they lacked charisma.
European Parliament, political factions, Hungary, FIDESZ, TISZA, Viktor Orbán, Péter Magyar, Patriots for Europe.
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