A rising challenger to the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has held what he has called the largest countryside political demonstration in the country’s recent history on the latest stop of his campaign tour that has mobilised thousands across Hungary’s rural heartland.
About 10,000 people gathered in Debrecen, Hungary’s second-largest city, in support of Péter Magyar, a political newcomer who has shot to prominence in less than three months by pledging to end official corruption and reverse the declining quality of life in the country.
Supporters endured a brief but unexpected rain shower before the afternoon demonstration, turning the city’s central square into a sea of umbrellas. They waved Hungarian flags bearing the names of towns and villages across the country from which they had come.
“Today, the vast majority of the Hungarian people are tired of the ruling elite, of the hatred, apathy, propaganda and artificial divides,” Magyar told the crowd. “Hungarians today want cooperation, love, unity and peace.”
Magyar, a former insider in Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party, has since February denounced the nationalist Orbán since February as running an entrenched “mafia state” and declared war on what he calls the government’s propaganda machine.
His party, Tisza, which stands for Respect and Freedom, has announced it will run 12 candidates in the European elections on 9 June, with Magyar appearing first on the party list. It has also announced it will run four candidates in local council elections in Budapest.
His appearance on Sunday in Debrecen, a stronghold of the Fidesz party, reflected the focus his fledgling campaign has placed on the Hungarian countryside, where Orbán is popular.
Sunday’s event – held on Mother’s Day in Hungary – was the latest stop on a tour of the country where Magyar has appeared in dozens of cities, towns and villages, often drawing thousands of supporters – numbers that few Orbán opponents have ever been able to mobilise in rural areas.
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Addressing the crowd, he said “government propaganda” had tried to discredit his movement as “just a downtown Budapest media hack”, and criticised the country’s traditional opposition parties as having abandoned rural Hungarians.
“We’ve heard for 14 years from the opposition that it’s impossible in these circumstances to defeat Orbán, that it’s not worth travelling to the countryside, that young people aren’t interested in politics, that you can’t break down the walls of propaganda,” he said. “But look around, what’s the truth?”
Katalin Nagy, who travelled several hours to the rally, said she found Magyar credible “because he comes from the inside”.
“He’s aware of the things that are really causing problems in this country, and I think he can provide solutions to problems so that we can come out of the hole that this country is currently in,” she said.
Recent polls show that Magyar’s party may have become the largest opposition force little more than a month before the election. The polling company Median this week measured Tisza at 25% among certain voters, with Fidesz well ahead at 45%.
Governing party politicians have dismissed Magyar, who describes himself as a moderate conservative, as a leftist in disguise and suggested that foreign interests lie behind his rise.
Orbán and his party have ruled Hungary with a constitutional majority since 2010.