标签： Europe

On the eve of Hungary’s most consequential national election in over a decade, the country’s two largest political factions wrapped up chaotic, high-stakes campaign seasons Saturday with closing rallies that laid bare the stark divides shaping Sunday’s vote. For incumbent Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the ballot box marks the greatest existential threat to his 16-year grip on national power, as challenger Péter Magyar’s upstart center-right Tisza Party has surged to double-digit leads in most independent public opinion surveys. A Tisza victory would oust Orbán in one of the most dramatic political upsets in modern Hungarian history, though many analysts caution the final result could be far closer than polling suggests, noting Orbán’s ruling Fidesz party retains a deeply loyal, highly mobilized base across rural Hungary.

Magyar, a 45-year-old lawyer and one-time insider within Fidesz’s own political circle, has spent the past two years crisscrossing the country, stopping in hundreds of small towns and rural communities to court voters who have long backed Orbán. Saturday, he brought his closing argument to Debrecen, Hungary’s second-largest city and a longstanding Fidesz stronghold, where thousands of cheering Tisza supporters packed University Square to hear him speak.

Striking an optimistic, defiant tone, Magyar framed Sunday’s vote as a defining turning point for the nation. “This election will enter Hungarian history books as the day of resurrection, the renewal of the Hungarian nation, and of the real change of regime,” he told the crowd. Rejecting the divisive rhetoric that has defined Orbán’s tenure, Magyar extended an olive branch to Fidesz voters, promising his first act in office would be to pursue national reconciliation. “As the winner of the election, we will have to extend a hand to our fellow countrymen,” he said, outlining a plan to reunite a country split by years of polarized rule.

Addressing one of the core pillars of his campaign, Magyar reaffirmed his commitment to keeping Hungary anchored in the European Union, reversing Orbán’s gradual shift toward closer political and economic ties to Moscow. As supporters waved Hungarian flags and chanted “Európa! Európa!”, he declared, “many millions” of voters would confirm on Sunday that “Hungary’s place was, is, and will be in Europe.”

Annamária Matkovics, a 50-year-old farmer and local Tisza activist in the eastern Hungarian town of Balmazújváros, who joined the party when it launched in 2024, said even in traditional Fidesz heartland, discontent with the incumbent has reached a breaking point. While many voters report fears of retaliation — including losing their state-supported jobs — if they are caught backing the opposition, Matkovics said most dissidents are still prepared to vote for change. “When we’re campaigning on the street, people tell us that they’re worried that they’ll lose their jobs if they don’t vote for Fidesz, and they’re still planning to vote for Tisza,” she said. “They’ve had enough of the division.”

A few hundred kilometers away in Budapest, Orbán closed his campaign to thousands of supporters on the city’s historic Castle Hill, doubling down on the core message that has defined his reelection bid: framing the election as a choice between stability and risky change, amid what he calls a wave of external threats endangering the Hungarian people. With Russia’s ongoing full-scale war in neighboring Ukraine top of mind, Orbán warned the country could not afford to hand power to an inexperienced newcomer.

“We are in an age of danger,” Orbán told the crowd. “Hungary is facing serious challenges. We need to say no to major power groups in the world in order to defend ourselves, and this requires knowledge, experience and routine. Now is not the time to take risks, to change, to renew and to adventure. Now we need to protect and secure what we have.”

Orbán’s campaign has been hobbled by multiple headwinds this cycle: stubbornly poor economic performance that has driven high inflation and rising living costs for ordinary Hungarians, growing public scrutiny of his administration’s increasingly close ties to the Kremlin, and persistent allegations of systemic corruption that benefit a small circle of political allies close to the prime minister. To shore up support, Orbán has leaned heavily on his high-profile relationship with former U.S. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly endorsed his reelection. Earlier this week, U.S. Vice President JD Vance traveled to Budapest for a two-day campaign stop, headlining a publicly funded rally alongside Orbán to boost his bid for a fifth term.

In contrast to Orbán’s focus on external threats and geopolitical risk, Magyar has centered his campaign on bread-and-butter issues that directly impact Hungarian households: soaring inflation, skyrocketing living costs, and the crumbling state of public healthcare and transportation infrastructure. He has also made a core campaign promise to root out what he calls endemic government corruption that has enriched a tiny elite at the public’s expense — allegations Orbán has repeatedly denied. With turnout expected to be high across the country, all eyes now turn to Sunday, when Hungarian voters will decide whether to extend Orbán’s 16-year tenure or usher in the most sweeping political change the country has seen in a generation.

As Germany prepares for regional elections this September, the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is positioned to make unprecedented political history, holding a strong lead in opinion polls in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt that could deliver the party its first outright state-level majority since the end of World War II.

At a party conference held this weekend in Magdeburg, the state’s capital, AfD delegates formally adopted a 150-page government platform widely labeled as radical and centered on pro-ethnic German policy priorities. Leading the party’s state ticket is Ulrich Siegmund, a popular TikTok political personality who received a standing ovation from conference attendees, framed the upcoming vote as a turning point for not just Saxony-Anhalt, but the entire nation and beyond.

“The whole of Germany is watching this historic election. Parts of Europe are watching this historic election. Parts of the world are watching this historic election, because from here, finally, the political turnaround can also happen here in Germany,” Siegmund told the crowd. He emphasized that AfD is the only major party willing to openly address widespread public grievances, stating, “that we don’t feel safe anymore, that we scarcely feel at home anymore, that we don’t recognise our homeland anymore.” Closing his remarks, he issued a rallying cry: “Let’s take back our country.”

The party’s policy platform lays out sweeping changes for Saxony-Anhalt, with hardline restrictions on immigration and targeted support for ethnically German families at its core. A central pillar of the plan is aggressive implementation of deportation and “remigration” policies — a controversial term referring to the mass relocation of people with non-German backgrounds, which has been openly embraced by the party following a 2024 leak revealing senior AfD figures attended a private discussion on mass expulsion proposals. Notably, the platform even calls for an end to recognizing Ukrainians as war refugees and demands their remigration, a policy that directly clashes with the federal German government’s staunch support for Kyiv amid Russia’s ongoing invasion.

Beyond immigration, the platform takes a strongly pro-Russia stance, calling for an immediate end to energy sanctions on Moscow, expanded Russian language education in German schools, and argues that the current Berlin-led anti-Russia policy runs counter to German national interests. To address Saxony-Anhalt’s status as Germany’s oldest state with a rapidly aging population, AfD proposes tax breaks for large ethnically German families and universal free childcare, framed as a push to prevent what the party calls the “extinction of the German people.” The platform also enshrines a conservative vision of the nuclear family as “a father, a mother and as many children as possible,” blames low birth rates on what it terms “sexual deviations and non-reproductive lifestyles,” and proposes a ban on gay pride flags in public schools. Additional proposals include cutting public funding for regional public broadcasting.

While some of AfD’s proposals require federal approval and cannot be implemented at the state level alone, a large portion of the platform’s provisions are feasible under state governance. Political opponents have issued stark warnings about the party’s agenda. Eva von Angern, parliamentary group leader for the left-wing Die Linke party in Saxony-Anhalt, described AfD’s plans as a “nightmare scenario for Saxony-Anhalt and for our democracy.” She accused the party of advancing an authoritarian vision that would severely erode fundamental civil rights, saying, “the public must be made aware of the AfD’s ‘ugly truths’ and the ‘very negative consequences for them personally if the AfD were to govern in Saxony-Anhalt.’”

The AfD has held major support in former East German states including Saxony-Anhalt for years, but the party has seen rising support across the entire country in recent cycles. In last year’s federal elections, AfD secured a second-place finish, winning a historic 20.8% of the national vote and 152 seats in the 630-seat Bundestag. Domestically, intelligence officials have flagged the party as an extremist threat: the Saxony-Anhalt state branch of AfD was formally classified as a “far-right extremist organisation” by the state’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution in 2023, and the national party received the same classification from federal domestic intelligence last year. That federal classification drew criticism from the White House, and AfD has since mounted a legal challenge, resulting in a temporary court injunction that bars use of the label until a final ruling is issued.

Outside the Magdeburg party conference this weekend, hundreds of demonstrators gathered to protest the AfD and its agenda. Political observers across Europe now view the Saxony-Anhalt election and the party’s newly released platform as a clear indication of the national agenda AfD would pursue if it continues to gain power across Germany.

LONDON – A mass demonstration against the UK government’s controversial classification of the protest group Palestine Action as a terrorist organization ended with over 200 people taken into custody by London’s Metropolitan Police on Saturday.

Law enforcement confirmed that 212 protesters, ranging in age from 27 to 82 years old, were detained on charges of supporting an outlawed proscribed group. The demonstration was organized by Defend Our Juries, a grassroots group that had been publicly warned ahead of time by police that any participation in support of Palestine Action would lead to arrest. Hundreds of demonstrators converged on central London’s iconic Trafalgar Square, many carrying handmade placards reading statements such as “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action” to signal their solidarity with the banned group.

The legal battle over the government’s ban has been fraught with tension since February, when Britain’s High Court ruled that the Home Office’s decision to designate Palestine Action as a terrorist organization was unlawful. Despite the ruling, the ban remained in effect while the government pursues an appeal to the higher courts, creating a confusing legal landscape that left protesters vulnerable to arrest despite the original ruling against the ban.

Among the high-profile participants was Robert Del Naja, a founding member of the renowned British trip-hop collective Massive Attack. Del Naja told reporters he chose to openly hold a pro-Palestine Action sign despite the clear risk of arrest, which could impact his ability to cross international borders for work and travel. “I thought this is ridiculous and then the police making that U-turn to arrest people again, I thought that is even more ridiculous,” he said, explaining his decision to participate. “So I’m going to hold a sign today.”

As officers led detained protesters away to waiting police vans, crowd members jeered law enforcement, chanting “shame on you” and calling out the arrest of elderly and disabled demonstrators. When police escorted an elderly protester using a walking stick to custody, one attendee shouted to officers, “Yeah, she looks like a terrorist, doesn’t she mate?” highlighting what protesters see as the excessive and unreasonable nature of the government’s crackdown on pro-Palestine advocacy.

For decades, U.S. presidents have quietly shaped political outcomes in other countries through covert channels, behind-the-scenes diplomacy, and carefully coded public statements. But in his second term, former President turned current President Donald Trump has upended longstanding American norms, throwing open the doors to overt, aggressive intervention in foreign electoral contests on a scale unmatched by any of his predecessors. From Eastern Europe to Latin America to East Asia, Trump has deployed the full weight of his office and the allure of U.S. economic power to elevate ideologically aligned far-right and conservative candidates, breaking with a centuries-old tradition of discreet U.S. non-interference in other nations’ domestic political processes.

Trump’s most high-stakes test of this new approach will come on Sunday, when Hungarian voters head to the polls to decide whether Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a longstanding Trump ally, will secure a fifth consecutive term in office. Orbán cemented his bond with Trump early, becoming the first European leader to endorse Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, and remained loyal even during Trump’s four years out of office, making regular trips to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and throwing his support behind Trump’s 2024 comeback bid. That loyalty has been rewarded repeatedly: Trump has shared multiple posts on his Truth Social platform urging Hungarians to vote for Orbán, delivered a pre-election video address to a Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) gathering in Budapest praising Orbán’s hardline policies on immigration and national sovereignty, and even arranged for a viral speakerphone appearance at a 1,000-person Orbán campaign rally during Vice President JD Vance’s recent two-day trip to the Hungarian capital.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who as a senator once raised public alarms about democratic backsliding under Orbán’s rule, has also put past concerns aside to formally endorse the prime minister, emphasizing his “very, very close personal relationship and working relationship” with Trump. During his Budapest visit, Vance made the administration’s support explicit, even as he criticized the European Union for what he framed as its own foreign election interference in Hungary. “Of course we’re going to work with whoever wins the Hungarian election because we love the people of Hungary and it’s an important relationship,” Vance told reporters. “But Viktor Orbán is going to win the next election in Hungary, so I feel very confident about that and about our continued positive relationship.”

Hungary is far from the only country where Trump has inserted U.S. political power directly into a domestic electoral contest. In Argentina, the Trump administration finalized a $20 billion currency swap line to prop up the country’s struggling financial markets ahead of key legislative elections, with Trump openly threatening to pull the assistance if pro-market far-right candidate Javier Milei’s coalition failed to win. “If he loses, we are not going to be generous with Argentina. OK?” Trump told reporters during a White House lunch with Milei. Milei’s coalition ultimately prevailed, and the assistance remained in place. In Honduras’ 2023 presidential election, Trump publicly backed conservative former mayor Nasry Asfura, warned that the U.S. would cut off financial assistance if Asfura lost, and pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez—who shared Asfura’s party affiliation—shortly before voting day, overturning U.S. drug trafficking and weapons convictions against the former leader. Asfura went on to win the race. Trump has also publicly floated a pardon for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is facing ongoing corruption charges and a tough 2024 reelection contest, and backed hardline Japanese candidate Sanae Takaichi for prime minister.

Trump and his top officials have repeatedly used CPAC, a hub for global conservative activism, as a platform to elevate preferred foreign candidates. Last year, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem spoke at a CPAC gathering in Warsaw, urging Polish voters to support conservative candidate Karol Nawrocki and implying that the future of U.S. military presence in the country could depend on the election result. Nawrocki won his race.

Trump has openly embraced his role as a global political kingmaker, framing his intervention as a natural extension of his success building influence within the U.S. Republican Party. “I love it when I give endorsements and people win,” Trump told a gathering of allied Latin American leaders earlier this year. White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly defended the administration’s approach, framing it as a model of transparency. “President Trump is a great American statesman who will speak or work with anyone, and he makes no secret about those he likes or supports,” Kelly said. “Many individuals who align with President Trump’s ideology are getting elected to top offices around the world because everyone wants to replicate his immeasurable success on behalf of the American people.”

Critics, however, argue that Trump’s blatant intervention has upended longstanding U.S. foreign policy norms, turning tools of statecraft that were once used to advance broad American national interests into vehicles for partisan political gain that erode the sovereignty of other nations. David Pressman, who served as U.S. ambassador to Hungary during the Biden administration, told reporters that Hungarian foreign policy on key issues like the war in Ukraine is now being shaped through a U.S. partisan lens, rather than as independent sovereign policy. “The impact of that is to really cheapen a relationship,” Pressman said.

James Lindsay, a distinguished senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, noted that while past U.S. presidents have influenced foreign elections—often through covert action like the CIA’s 1954 coup that ousted Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz, or rare explicit endorsements like Bill Clinton’s public support for Boris Yeltsin in 1993—Trump’s open, widespread intervention is unprecedented. “Trump is just different than other presidents, and he’s viewed differently than other presidents, and that is a strength you can take advantage of,” Lindsay said.

Democratic critics go further, framing Trump’s intervention as a deliberate expansion of historical U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., pointed to the Trump administration’s December national security strategy, which outlined what it called the “Trump Corollary” to the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, a policy that has historically justified U.S. military intervention across Latin America. Kaine, who served as a missionary in Honduras during a period of deep covert U.S. involvement in the region, called the framework “poison language” that violates longstanding best practices for U.S. foreign policy. “America has been deeply involved in regime support, opposition and regime change in the Americas for centuries, and it is not a legacy that we should be proud of,” Kaine said.

The intervention has also sparked backlash from European leaders. Early in the second Trump term, Vance delivered a fiery speech at the Munich Security Conference where he criticized mainstream German parties for refusing to partner with the country’s far-right opposition, straining bilateral ties. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz later pushed back, noting that no U.S. official had any business weighing in on Germany’s domestic political dynamics. “I wouldn’t do it in America, either,” Merz said. As voters head to the polls in Hungary on Sunday, the result will offer a clear indication of just how much sway Trump’s public endorsement actually holds with foreign electorates, with independent polls showing Orbán trailing ahead of voting day—an outcome that would mark a major rebuke of the U.S. president’s global political ambitions.

On the eve of Hungary’s most consequential national election in a generation, the country’s two leading political forces are pushing their campaigns to the final 24-hour stretch, as challenger Péter Magyar mounts a historic bid to unseat Viktor Orbán’s ruling Fidesz party, which has held uninterrupted power for 16 years.

Addressing thousands of energized supporters ahead of voting, Magyar declared his movement was on the cusp of securing a two-thirds parliamentary majority, urging his base to put in a final push before heading into the voting booths. Following his speech, the opposition leader worked the crowd, posing for selfies with voters in a display of grassroots connection that has become a hallmark of his campaign. His final campaign stop will be in Debrecen, Hungary’s second-largest city located in the country’s northeast, while Orbán—who trails Magyar in most independent opinion polls—will close out his campaign with a major rally in the capital, Budapest.

The momentum of the anti-Fidesz movement was on full display Friday night, when tens of thousands of Hungarians packed Budapest’s Heroes’ Square and the adjacent streets for a united anti-incumbent concert, one of the largest public opposition gatherings in the country in decades. For first-time voter Fanni, who traveled two hours from her southern village to attend the event with her mother, the election represents a once-in-a-generation opening for change. “I don’t think I’d support Magyar in an ideal world, but this is our only shot to turn things around,” she said, adding that she could feel a palpable shift across the country.

Orbán’s greatest vulnerability heading into the vote is the broad, cross-sectional public anger that has coalesced around Magyar’s opposition movement. A former Fidesz insider who broke with the party over its corruption and authoritarian turn, Magyar has built his new grassroots political party, Tisza, into a unifying force for disparate anti-Orbán groups across the political spectrum.

The incumbent prime minister has received high-profile backing from prominent American conservative figures in the final days of the campaign: U.S. Vice President JD Vance completed a two-day campaign swing in support of Fidesz, and former President Donald Trump pledged late Friday that he would leverage “the full economic might of the United States to strengthen Hungary’s economy” if Orbán secures another term.

Though Hungary is a small landlocked Central European nation with just 9.6 million residents, Orbán has positioned himself as a pivotal global player over his tenure. A close ally of both Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, he has emerged as a leading disruptive force within the European Union, consistently blocking Brussels’ policy initiatives on Ukraine and alienating his EU allies while maintaining close economic and political ties to the Kremlin.

While pro-Fidesz pollsters still argue the incumbent holds a narrow edge—pointing to the large share of undecided “shy Fidesz voters” who do not share their voting intentions with pollsters—Orbán’s campaign has lacked the energy and momentum that has defined Magyar’s challenge. Orbán’s core message to voters has been a warning that the opposition could eliminate all the economic and political progress his government has built over 16 years, and he has called for national unity amid global uncertainty. His strategy of framing the EU and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as the primary threats to Hungarian sovereignty has failed to close the gap: most independent polls show Magyar holding a steady 10-point lead over Fidesz.

Magyar, a centre-right conservative who spent years in senior roles within Fidesz before breaking away, has run a grueling national campaign, delivering as many as seven public speeches a day across villages, towns and cities across the country. Speaking to supporters in the small northwestern town of Mosonmagyaróvár, he framed the election as a historic opportunity for regime change to reverse Orbán’s authoritarian turn.

Tisza’s coalition has drawn support from across the ideological spectrum, but its greatest strength is among young Hungarians, many of whom have never known any government other than Fidesz. “Right now, there’s no future for young people in this country,” said Laura, a first-time voter who attended a Magyar rally with her friend Napsugár.

Political analyst Zsuzsanna Végh, a researcher with the German Marshall Fund of the United States, confirmed that a clear generational shift is underway: opinion polls put Fidesz’s support among voters aged 18 to 29 at less than 10 percent. She also noted that the opposition has made significant inroads in small towns and even rural villages, long considered Fidesz strongholds. “While large rally crowds don’t guarantee election outcomes, the scale of engagement and mobilization that Magyar has achieved is unprecedented in Hungary,” Végh said.

A Magyar victory would end 16 years of Orbán rule and roll back many of the incumbent’s controversial policies, but to dismantle the pro-Fidesz institutional infrastructure that has been built in the judiciary and state bodies over the past 16 years, Magyar needs to win a two-thirds parliamentary majority. That will require flipping control of many long-held Fidesz municipal seats, including in Székesfehérvár, Hungary’s medieval “city of kings” located an hour south of Budapest. Orbán visited the city on Friday, reminding supporters that it has long been a safe Fidesz seat; losing the city would be a major humiliation for the party.

One local stallholder in Székesfehérvár’s covered market estimated that 90 percent of local residents still back Fidesz. For Agota, a retired pensioner, the opposition’s pro-EU and pro-Ukraine stance poses a clear risk to Hungary. “I’m genuinely afraid they will drag Hungary into the war,” she said.

Anti-EU and anti-Ukraine rhetoric has been the centerpiece of Orbán’s campaign, repeated nonstop on pro-Fidesz television networks and news websites, and featured on campaign posters that pair Zelensky and Magyar under the slogan “They are dangerous!”

But György Wáberer, one of Hungary’s wealthiest businessmen, has accused Fidesz of deliberate fear-mongering over the EU and Ukraine to distract from its corruption and close alignment with the Kremlin. “April 12 is a fateful date: you will decide whether Hungary belongs to Europe or to Russia,” Wáberer said, drawing a fierce rebuke from a senior Orbán administration official who labeled Wáberer a traitor who sold out his country.

Notably, Magyar has allowed Russian state propaganda television crews to cover his rallies, telling them they are witnessing authentic regime change in action, while his supporters have repeatedly chanted “Russians go home” — a clear reflection of growing public frustration with Orbán’s close ties to Putin. The same chant has even broken out at Orbán rallies, where protesters have disrupted the prime minister’s speeches.

Orbán’s alignment with Putin has delivered cheap Russian fuel to Hungarian consumers throughout the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but the chant “Russians go home” carries deep historical resonance in Hungary, dating back to the 1956 revolution against Soviet occupation.

Even in loyal Fidesz territory like Székesfehérvár, opinions are deeply divided. At a local flower stall, 73-year-old Eva said she believes it is long past time for a change, while her daughter-in-law Andrea argues that Magyar is arrogant and dismissive of the progress Fidesz has delivered. “Fidesz has to go, they have stolen so much and the country is dying,” Eva said. Andrea pushed back, noting that Fidesz has renovated six local schools and built new hospital facilities in the city. Eva countered that much of the public funding for those projects was siphoned off by corrupt insiders close to Orbán.

Widespread allegations of corruption and cronyism have pushed millions of former Fidesz voters away from the ruling party at both the local and national level. Over 16 years in power, big public infrastructure contracts have consistently been awarded to members of Orbán’s inner circle, while independent media outlets have been systematically bought up by allies of the prime minister. After nearly two decades in uninterrupted control, Fidesz may finally be facing its moment of reckoning at the ballot box.