The Hungarian Left in Crisis
The 2024 election saw a collapse of the left-wing vote in Hungary. How did the left fall victim to anti-established opposition sentiments and what does this mean for leftist and opposition politics?
One of the most striking and frequently cited takeaways from the 2024 EP and local elections in Hungary is the apparent collapse of left-wing political forces. The electoral success of the newly emerged right-wing Tisza Party against the dominant Fidesz, along with the solid performance of the far-right Mi Hazánk Party, has led many to question the viability of left-wing politics in Hungary today. So, what exactly happened? Where should we look for the causes? What does this mean for the future of leftist politics in Hungary? And where does this leave Fidesz and the opposition parties?
The Left’s (Mostly) Disappointing Performance in the 2024 Elections
The left-wing coalition, consisting of the dominant Democratic Coalition (DK) and the two almost-nonexistent parties of MSZP and Párbeszéd (PM), suffered a significant blow in the EP elections. They managed to garner just 367,162 votes, a dismal result after polling above 15% just two months earlier. This should have translated into at least double the number of votes. The emergence of the Tisza Party is largely to blame, as it siphoned off voters from all opposition parties (as well as some from Fidesz). The left-wing DK-MSZP-PM coalition was a significant casualty, promptly losing its status as the "most viable opposition force" in the eyes of voters.
They fared somewhat better in the local election, but this is hardly testament to the parties’ appeal to voters. They documented some successes: all five of DK’s and all three of MSZP’s mayors in Budapest were re-elected, and they also won the district of Újpest with a new candidate. Many of their mayors secured re-election in larger cities outside Budapest, and they won some larger cities and small towns for the first time in years. Notably, an MSZP candidate won in the Alföld city of Szolnok, ousting a Fidesz mayor, while DK’s candidates won in Pápa, a town where Fidesz had won every election since 1989, and Nagykanizsa, a Western Hungarian town under Fidesz rule for 18 years. However, these victories in local politics were generally more about the popularity of individual local politicians than a broader endorsement of left-wing parties or policies by the electorate. This is evidenced by many instances where the left coalition’s mayoral candidate easily won reelection but the left-wing coalition won but a handful of votes in the EP election. For instance, in the traditionally left-wing city of Szeged, the left-wing mayor and former prime ministerial candidate László Botka won a resounding victory with 68% of the votes for the 6th time but its left-wing coalition garnered but 11.3% of votes.
Gergely Karácsony, the left-wing coalition’s mayoral candidate, also eked out a victory by a razor-thin margin of 41 votes in the largely opposition-voting capital. The election was highly fraught, with Fidesz’s candidate withdrawing just two days before in favor of Karácsony’s other challenger, Dávid Vitézy. Still, winning reelection by just 41 votes in a decidedly liberal capital city of 1.7 million shows that the left-wing mayor’s appeal was not as universal as many expected. The reason largely lies in the fraught position of the left in Hungary: many were turned off by the fact that the mayor ran on the DK-led left-wing coalition’s ticket. As noted in last week's article by Ábel Bede, this happened in large part because Karácsony underestimated the anti-established opposition sentiment among anti-Orbán voters, leading to his electoral punishment for his party’s coalition with DK.
The Democratic Coalition’s Brief Tenure as the Main Challenger
These results are surprising given the fact that DK taking the most serious steps to establish credibility after April 2022. Following Fidesz’s sweeping victory in the 2022 national election, DK quickly emerged as its main challenger. While other parties retreated from public view to focus on internal matters like leadership and party direction with some like Momentum puzzlingly absent from politics for almost a year, DK wasted no time. To counter Fidesz’s accusations of an incompetent and incapable opposition and address voters’ doubts over the opposition’s competence and capacity to govern, they established a shadow cabinet—the first of its kind in Hungary. The intentions were clear: to show they are the party of the opposition who could steer the ship and to demonstrate their strength as the main opposition challenger to Fidesz. They indeed succeeded for a while in portraying them as the most serious opposition challenger. DK was steadily gaining support in polls and even leading politicians of other opposition parties started to defect to DK.
Yet, the success turned out to be short-lived and DK’s new status as the main challenger especially fragile. When the Péter Magyar and his Tisza Party took Hungary by storm, voters saw a more promising alternative for this status. Voters quickly flocked to the new party, believing it had a better chance of defeating Fidesz. As electoral results rolled in on June 9th, the left-wing coalition’s leaders spoke of disappointments. Gyurcsány admitted that "this long day has significantly changed the map of Hungarian politics", with other leading politicians lamenting the loss of ground to a new right-wing political force and the dominance of right-wing forces in Hungarian politics. The next day, symbolically, DK announced that its shadow cabinet would cease to exist.
Anti-Established Opposition Sentiments and the Discredited Left
So, how did this happen? In essence, most opposition-minded voters have become convinced that the established opposition, especially any coalition involving DK’s leader and ex-prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsány, cannot win against Fidesz, so voting for them is actually voting against an opposition electoral victory. The loss in the 2022 national election was unforgivable for anti-Orbán voters, who largely hold the established opposition culpable. And of all the established opposition, the left is viewed as the ultimate perpetrator.
A prominent figure of DK and the leftist coalition, Ferenc Gyurcsány has been a specter haunting the Hungarian opposition, having served as prime minister to disastrous effect until Fidesz’s victory in 2010. An incredibly divisive figure, he is unpopular with most, except DK’s ardent supporters. Fidesz capitalizes on this in their anti-opposition propaganda, portraying Gyurcsány as the face behind every major opposition challenger, from the prime ministerial candidate Péter Márki-Zay in 2022 to Gergely Karácsony in the Budapest mayoral election in 2024. Thus, Gyurcsány’s continued presence and power in politics is seen as a significant hindrance to the opposition's success, enraging many anti-Fidesz voters. Finally, "the left" has also become the new favorite swearword for the opposition in Fidesz propaganda outlets, aiming to ensure that potential voters steer clear of the opposition, even if they are slightly dissatisfied with Fidesz.
So, are all but 8% of Hungarian voters staunchly right-wing? Not quite. While the political center and much of the landscape have indeed become decidedly right-wing and conservative, this does not mean there are barely any left-wing and liberal voters. It simply means that many left-wing and liberal voters are more anti-Fidesz than left or liberal. They prioritize a chance at opposition victory over voting for their preferred policy platform—a trend unsurprising given that policy platforms have been but an afterthought in Hungarian elections for many years now.
This trend fits with a broader pattern of contracting support for social democratic parties in established democracies, but it has a unique Hungarian flavor. This phenomenon aligns with a global trend of the declining appeal of traditional left parties since their discredit following the rise of neoliberalism and the financial crisis in the 2000s. In Hungary, as elsewhere in Europe, voters feel that the traditional left has not delivered on its promises to solve present-day economic problems, while populist far-right parties have attracted many working-class voters who traditionally supported the moderate left. Poorer voters are indeed Fidesz’s core electorate and offering a credible alternative to Fidesz’s welfare programs and conservative ideological appeal is a tall order for any left-wing party until the country’s economic outlook is anything but disastrous. However, the Hungarian situation has an additional twist in the left’s lack of credibility: voters not only doubt the left's ability to govern effectively but are also absolutely convinced that it cannot win an election. Many voters who would more happily (or maybe just less unhappily) vote for a left-wing or liberal party voted for Tisza Party, as they desperately want a new opposition that they think could be capable of defeating Fidesz much more than a left-wing party they think could never win.
The Immediate Future of Left-Wing and Opposition Politics in Hungary
While opposition voters hold beating Fidesz a priority, and the social democratic challenge to Fidesz is not credible, left-wing politics has little prospect at dominating the Hungarian opposition. The Tisza Party’s rapid rise to prominence suggests a right-wing experiment as the main Fidesz challenger in the foreseeable future, with the majority of liberal and left-wing anti-Fidesz voters largely supportive of this shift. Admittedly, a similar strategy was attempted with the 2022 opposition prime ministerial candidate, Péter Márki-Zay, with little success. Many opposition voters disliked him but believed he might sway some Fidesz supporters – a hope that turned out to be misguided. Now, Péter Magyar is already seen as more credible, with reports indicating that his party gained its highest vote share in the most Fidesz-dominated localities. This suggests he might be different. As long as anti-Orbán voters have faith in him and this experiment (or, if he fails, the next similar experiment), left-wing politics cannot be the defining opposition force in Hungary.
Yet, the left is definitely here to stay. Their voter base is very committed, even if small and dwindling. Their core is also unlikely to be wooed by the Tisza Party, with its strong anti-established opposition and anti-Gyurcsány platform. DK’s committed base will be the last to be swayed by this, as I highlighted in our post-election panel. As the 2026 national election approaches, we will see what this new political arena will mean for DK and its left-wing allies in national politics. However, if Ferenc Gyurcsány’s multi-decade example is anything to go by, they are unlikely to go quietly—and, more accurately, unlikely to go at all.
This should not disrupt the Tisza Party’s political project as the new main challenger in the near future. Fidesz’s message that Tisza Party is “the left” has not proven credible – all except the most ardent Fidesz supporters do not believe the Tisza Party to be left-wing. As such, Fidesz would be better served looking for a new swearword for its main opposition. While Fidesz struggles to find this new label, the new opposition should be free to focus on backing up its appeal, so far comprised mostly of words, with concrete actions. If they do so with success, they will continue to slowly chip away at the left-wing coalitions’ support.
And what about the future of the left? For it to be a viable and consequential political force, a new left must emerge – one untainted by divisive characters, past losses, and unrealised promises. One that is new, young, fresh, credible, and probably a bit of a gamble. Successful left-wing projects like the 8th district’s local government led by András Pikó may just be the right source for these new faces and new approaches, but it is hard to see how such local initiatives would transform into a national political force. Most likely, the left will be relegated as the 3rdor 4th most important player in Hungary’s national party scene for the foreseeable future.
Hanna Fölsz