Firebrand Péter Magyar has been sort of a messiah figure for some Hungarian opposition voters. After over a decade of their preferred parties losing elections by wide margins, they saw a figure emerging with some potential at last. He does have two things going for him: he has shown the ability to draw big crowds, and has a high level of engagement on his social media.
Neither of those are unimportant assets. However, they have still not converted to much electoral success, at least for now. In the 2024 European Parliamentary elections, his TISZA Party ended up losing to Fidesz by 15 points. That is despite the fact that elections held between general elections tend to favour the out-of-power parties.
In the following three and half months after the EP election, Magyar has not been able to stay out of tabloid news, hurting his chances to get any closer to Fidesz in the 2026 Hungarian general election.
The latest chapter in his saga is his recent ex-girlfriend Evelin Vogel going public with accusations of domestic abuse against him. In a series of interviews with a Hungarian news outlet, she also claimed that he was motivated by selfish reasons for his break from the Fidesz-aligned business network and his opposition run for office, and not sincere convictions to the betterment of the country.
All this is very much on brand for Magyar.
His initial claim to fame was sharing a secretly recorded conversation with his ex-wife, former Minister of Justice Judit Varga. Varga has also publicly accused him of physical and emotional abuse. In April 2024 the Hungarian political site Mandiner published a police report from December 2020 that seems to corroborate her claims.
‘The latest chapter in Péter Magyar's saga is his recent ex-girlfriend Evelin Vogel going public with accusations of domestic abuse against him’
Having your last two public romantic partners come out with accusations against you is an impressive achievement on its own. However, in between the two accusations, Magyar also managed to squeeze in some footage being leaked of him dancing in a nightclub with girls visibly much younger than him. In April 2022, Prime Minister Sanna Marin of Finland had similar footage leaked of her. Despite the Finnish electorate being a lot more liberal than the Hungarian, she ended up coming in third in the parliamentary elections a year later, behind the centre-right National Coalition Party in first place and the right-wing populist Finns Party in second place.
So, it does not seem to be going well for Péter Magyar in his bid for the Prime Ministership.
It is hard to find any comparable examples of a person with this type of baggage from their personal life successfully leading a party ticket to victory. And it is quite logical why not. How could voters entrust someone to lead the country who cannot even get his private life in order?
As Canadian clinical psychologist and philosopher Jordan Peterson likes to say, you have to clean your room first before you go out and advocate for social change. However, he usually directs this message to spoiled college kids in their early 20s, not a 43-year-old father of three and national political figure.
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