With a week to go until Hungary heads to the polls, Prime Minister Viktor Orban is fighting to save his political skin. Unusually for a set of Hungarian parliamentary elections, on 12 April, eyes across Europe and beyond will be glued to this set of results. Whether or not Orban remains in power will have widespread ramifications, not just for Hungary but also for the EU – and even Ukraine and Russia.

After 16 years in power, Orban’s Fidesz party is trailing in the polls with roughly 39 per cent compared to the approximately 49 per cent of his opponent and former Fidesz colleague Peter Magyar’s party, Tisza – relaunched under his leadership just two years ago. Since the election campaign got under way in February, accusations of wiretapping, vote buying, espionage and foreign interference have been levelled by both sides. With Magyar’s lead expected to solidify in the final days of the campaign, his supporters are daring to be hopeful. The Prime Minister’s campaign, meanwhile, has acquired more than a whiff of desperation.

Orban’s advocacy on behalf of Moscow in Brussels has been anything but spontaneous

Orban’s advocacy on behalf of Moscow in Brussels has been anything but spontaneous

Orban’s fight has been far from clean. Having won four terms in office under increasingly dubious circumstances, this is the first time he has been faced with a serious, solo political challenger as opposed to a brittle coalition of opposing parties. A right-wing populist who has leaned into closer ties with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, Orban has made Ukraine, with its president Volodymyr Zelensky and its backing by the EU, the central bogeyman of his campaign.

Orban’s anti-Ukraine rhetoric has grown more extreme as election day draws closer. In an attempt to harness Hungary’s nationalist sentiment, Fidesz has tried to smear Magyar as a ‘puppet’ of both Zelensky and Brussels. Zelensky himself has also featured on Orban’s campaign material, with unflattering pictures of him laughing accompanied by........

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