Péter Magyar

Péter Magyar (; born 16 March 1981) is a Hungarian lawyer and politician who was elected member of the European Parliament in 2024. Since 2024, he has been a member of and also the incumbent president of Tisza (Respect and Freedom) Party, Hungary's largest opposition party. As such, he is widely expected to be Viktor Orbán's challenger in the 2026 parliamentary elections.

A former member of Hungary's governing party Fidesz, and ex-husband to former justice minister Judit Varga, Magyar gained nationwide attention in February 2024 when he publicly announced his resignation from all government-related positions after expressing deep dissatisfaction with how Fidesz was governing the country.

On 15 March 2024, he announced his desire to form a new political platform for citizens dissatisfied with both the government and the establishment opposition. He took over the formerly unknown Respect and Freedom (Tisztelet és Szabadság, TISZA) Party, and ran in the 2024 European Parliamentary elections. His party came second behind Fidesz, gaining nearly 30%, the highest number and percentage of votes by any non-Fidesz party since 2006.

Personal life

Magyar was born on 16 March 1981 in Budapest, Hungary. He is a former member of Fidesz, the right-wing populist party that has governed Hungary since 2010.

He met Judit Varga on 1 April 2005 at a party. He proposed to her in August 2006. They have three sons; the first was born in 2008. The family lived in Brussels for several years before returning to Budapest when Varga was tapped for a position in the Ministry of Justice. The couple announced their divorce in March 2023.

His family is prominent in Hungarian politics, including a judge and a former president. His grandfather was a judge who hosted a popular television program about legal matters. His great-uncle Ferenc Mádl served as President of Hungary from 2000 to 2005, and his mother worked in the judicial branch.

Political career

Fidesz

Before entering politics in a local chapter of Fidesz, at the time an opposition party, Magyar participated in the ''pro bono'' legal representation as well as assistance for anti-government activists during the 2006 protests in Hungary. His earlier role in Fidesz has been variously described as "powerful insider" and "former official". After Fidesz took power in the 2010 Hungarian parliamentary election, he was appointed as an official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A year later, coinciding with the Hungarian EU presidency, he joined the Permanent Representation of Hungary to the European Union. In 2015, he became employed by the Prime Minister's Office. In September 2018, he took over the management of the EU Legal Directorate of the state-owned MBH Bank. Between 2019 and 2022, he was the head of the Student Loan Center.

Leaving Fidesz

Magyar first came to prominence for his criticism of government politicians after the Katalin Novák presidential pardon scandal. In February 2024, Peter released a voice recording of his wife that he had secretly made without his wife's knowledge or consent in which it was revealed that the president of Hungary, Katalin Novák, had granted a presidential pardon in April 2023 to Endre Kónya, the deputy director of a state-run children's home near Budapest. The deputy had coerced children into covering up sexual abuse by his superior, János Vásárhelyi, the home's director. The scandal resulted in anti-government protests demanding that Novák resign; she did so on 10 February 2024. The same day, Magyar's ex-wife Judit Varga, the former justice minister who had countersigned the pardon, also announced her resignation from the National Assembly and her role leading the Fidesz party list in the June 2024 European Parliament election.

Hours after his ex-wife's announcement of her withdrawal from politics, Magyar published a Facebook post declaring that he would resign from his positions in two state-owned enterprises and relinquish his seat on the board of a third, MBH Bank. He wrote that the past few years had made him realize that the idea of a "national, sovereign, bourgeois Hungary" stated as the goal of Viktor Orbán's rule was in fact a "political product" serving to obscure massive corruption and transfers of wealth to those with the right connections.

In the following weeks, Magyar conducted a number of interviews with Hungary's most-read news organizations, including Partizán, Telex.hu, and 444.hu, in which he extensively criticized the government, particularly Minister of the Prime Minister's Cabinet Office Antal Rogán. He claimed that during his tenure as the head of the national student loan provider, he had been forced to favor those close to Orbán in public invitations to tender and pressured on aspects of his divorce. His first interview, in which he claimed that "a few families own half the country," had been viewed more than two million times as of March 2024.

Magyar continued publishing posts critical of figures associated with the government in the subsequent days, claiming that people friendly with or related to the prime minister, like his son-in-law István Tiborcz, had amassed enormous wealth hidden behind domestic private equity funds. On 15 March 2024, he held a rally attended by tens of thousands in Budapest at which he announced the formation of a new political party. According to polling conducted that month, around 15 percent of voters claimed they were "certain or highly likely" to vote for Magyar if he ran for office.

On 6 April 2024, Magyar organised a second demonstration against the government, citing what he calls a "feudalistic system" that needs dismantling. Hundreds of thousands of protesters attended. The government-supported Megafon think tank spent 117 million HUF on an ad campaign against Magyar on Facebook in the weeks leading up to the rally.

TISZA party

Magyar joined the Respect and Freedom Party to contest the 2024 European Parliament elections. Magyar decided to take over the dormant, defunct party (as opposed to founding a new one) to avoid potential administrative hurdles posed by the Fidesz-controlled National Election Office. He went on a tour around the country, publicly speaking against corruption, cronyism, and kleptocracy, the deterioration of state services and infrastructure, such as in education, healthcare, and environment protection, and the challenges of demographic decline and worsening living standards.

Schadl-Völner case

Deposition of evidence

On 20 March 2024, Magyar testified for several hours at the Metropolitan Prosecutor's Office regarding the high-profile corruption case involving President of the Court Bailiffs over bribes paid to former Secretary of State for Justice Pál Völner. Shortly after his testimony, he announced to the press that he had proof in the form of audio recordings that Cabinet Minister Antal Rogán or his associates had manipulated documents in the case in order to hide evidence that would have incriminated Rogán. In a Facebook post a few days later, he promised to make the recordings public at 9 AM on 26 March 2024, the date of his next appointment to testify and present the evidence to the prosecutors. He wrote that once this happened, Chief Prosecutor Péter Polt as well as the entire Orbán government would have no choice but to resign. On 26 March, Magyar released the recording to the public. It contains a two-minute discussion between himself and his ex-wife Judit Varga about the Schadl-Völner corruption case. Varga's comments implicate Rogán in tampering with evidence by having his and/or his associates' names removed from documents associated with the case. He has turned the recording over to prosecutors.

Domestic abuse allegations

The same day that Magyar leaked the recording on which she discusses Rogán's role in the Schadl-Völner case, Varga published two posts on Facebook alleging that Magyar had verbally and physically abused her throughout their marriage. She also claimed that the statements she made on the leaked recording had been coerced during an interaction with Magyar in which she felt threatened. Later that evening, the YouTube channel ''Frizbi TV'' released an interview with Varga in which she went into more detail about her allegations, including that at various times Magyar had locked her in a room without her consent, pushed her against a door while she was pregnant, and walked around their shared residence brandishing a knife and once he faked suicide, but when the ambulance arrived, he drove off in his pyjamas and Varga had to send the medics off. Magyar called the accusations slander and said Varga was being blackmailed by the government. According to him, the government media only wanted to divert attention from the audio recording by committing character assassination against him. According to a released police report, Magyar behaved aggressively, intimidating and threatening towards his wife and his environment, when she attempted to take away his children with the help of police officers who were bodyguards due to Varga's job. Magyar was threatening Varga to create a scandal that would overthrow the government. They had a heated argument at their home, and drove erratically to a second home where the children were present. He tried to record the events on his phone, but was stopped by the police. In the end, Magyar went home, and Varga took the children to their grandparents. Magyar said the police report was falsified.

References

External links

Official movement

{{DEFAULTSORT:Magyar, Peter
1981 births
Living people
Politicians from Budapest
21st-century Hungarian lawyers
Pázmány Péter Catholic University alumni
MEPs for Hungary 2024–2029