What the Tisza Party has been smart in doing

5 March 2025
Ildi Amon

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Academics will be studying what Peter Magyar has done differently compared to other opposition leaders for decades to come.

While it’s not quite yet clear why him, what is it about this moment and would any of it be replicable, or is it just that he appeared at the right time, at the right place, with the right personality.

In any case Peter Magyar and his Tisza Party have upturned Hungarian politics seemingly out of the clear blue sky.

While in hindsight, we’ll be able to tell a lot more about what made Peter’s movement different, here are some of the things that he and his Party have been clever in doing so far.

Constant rallies and regional tours

Hungarian elections aren’t won or lost in Budapest, rather in the regional areas. The rallies in Budapest with hundreds of thousands of people are awesome for milestone events and amazing photos, but it’s the day-to-day grind of visiting village after village, city after city that can win votes in the long run.

Unlike many other politicians, Peter seems to grasp exactly how much time he has to spend in regional Hungary – a lot and then some.

Whether it’s his regional tours (four so far), or visiting Holloko for Easter or handing out firewood in some of the poorest villages, Peter is relentlessfly focussed on regional Hungary.

Opened a webshop

One of the first things the Tisza Party did was open a webshop with branded merchandise. It’s a great idea because people can show their support and financially support the Party. In just the first quarter of the 2025, Tisza made almost 47 million forints (more than 100,000 euros) from webshop sales.

Just like with Trump’s red hats, having merch that people can wear can be a bonding experience making supporting the Party more like being part of a movement.

My only objections with the webshop is they don’t have international postage to places like Australia, Canada and the US, and they don’t have a Made in Hungary range.

Non-stop media availability

One of the things people don’t like about Viktor Orban is that he doesn’t do press interviews — expect for one weekly radio interview which is extremely friendly. It makes him look like he is hiding away from tough questions, and that he feels he is above being held to account. It makes him look both spineless and arrogant at the same time.

Peter on the other hand hit the ground running with long-form YouTube interviews, traditional press interviews, press conferences and in-depth social media posts clarifying his positions. He even asked to be interviewed on the State-run TV station and was willing to walk into the lion’s den so to speak.

It makes him seem accessible, transparent and able/willing to answer tough questions. How refreshing!

It has not been without incident. Some of the interviews didn’t go so well. Like when he walked out of the ATV studios live on air. Or when his second Partizan interview was more combative than it needed to be.

Use of Facebook

Peter has been a master at using Facebook. It seems to be the primary social media channel he uses to communicate with the masses (he has an Instagram and TikTok as well).

He posts multiple times a day, interacts with people by replying to their comments, posts under news media articles with a direct response to claims.

His posts regularly get 20-70,000 likes and thousands of comments.

Use of video

On top of the media interviews, Peter also posts videos of all of his speeches. This means that even though maybe 500 people show up at one of his regional stops, in reality thousands or tens of thousands are watching the speech afterwards on YouTube or Facebook Live.

This means people can hear from him regularly and get to know him and his stances.

He also has a strong production team who do really high-quality events and videos. For example, check out these videos of Tisza’s March 15th commemoration or his Easter visit to Holloko. It’s also not always about high production values but just about communicating a story in a more human way. For example, people know that pensions are very low in Hungary — but it’s one thing to know this and another to see the consequences. Peter did a very touching video with one pensioner where she explained how much money she has and how she makes it work. Peter even went with her to shops to showcase up-close-and-personal the consequences of low pensions.

People spend so much time consuming video content that being strong in this space is super smart.

Asking for direct community involvement

To create the feeling that Tisza is a movement, it has asked for people to contribute in unique ways. I don’t think Fidesz or any of the opposition parties has ever done something similar. Here are some examples:

– During winter 2024-25, you could email to support providing firewood to disadvantaged people by emailing [email protected]
– If you know about government corruption and want to whistleblow you can submit a form to let Tisza know
– If you want to be a future leader of the Party you can submit an application

Data collection

Fidesz has a really robust voter data. And apparently the are constantly taking polls to see what is working and what isn’t.

Tisza has had to play catch-up in getting that kind of data that it will need to communicate in the lead-up to the April 2026 campaign. Here are some of the ways Tisza is collecting voter data:

– Newsletter signup on the website
– Ability to buy a “regime change” card to support Tisza
– The Nation’s Voice survey where people could provide their point of view on 12 questions
– Webshop
– Surveys on specific questions (e.g. they did one in 2024 where you could rank the most important topics to you)

Tisza Sziget communities

One of the first things the Tisza Party did was encourage “Tisza Sziget” groups. Tisza Sziget means Tisza Island. They are informal groups that you can spontaneously set up. For example, there are Tisza Szigets now for many villages, towns, cities, districts within Budapest, or even interest groups. There are even Tisza Szigets internationally e.g. London, Stuttgart, Melbourne etc.

What these groups do is quite organic. They have Facebook groups where they share news. They have meat-ups where they might discuss issues and figure out how to spread the word. Sometimes they host a panel discussion with an academic or political scientist, or organise events like picnics. They are also encouraged to help if Peter is visiting their area for a rally, or help with volunteering like when the Danube flooded in 2024 or in January 2025 when Peter handed out firewood to this in need. They played a big role in encouraging people to fill out The Nation’s Voice surveys including manning booths.

Leaders of Tisza Szigets might even become future leaders of the Party as they can show their organisational and leadership abilities on a local community level.

This is a really smart way to get everyday people involved, active and feeling invested in the success of the movement.

Making jokes out of attacks

Peter Magyar is kind of like Donald Trump in that he can’t be shamed. Every time Peter is attacked he makes a joke of it, dismisses it with a clown emoji in the Facebook comments, or writes a scathing post attacking back. This means the attacks just don’t stick.

When he was accused of belting his wife (not by his wife, but by those who purposefully misconstrued what she said), he posed with his belt next to posters of belts that were put up to antagonise him. When the public TV accused him of adjusting his privates at the EU Parliament, he posed with bananas. When Orban tried to diminish him as a “latte avocado” drinking light-weight, Peter posted a video of him making a latte avocado in his kitchen. When Fidesz’s Communications Director Tamas Menczer accosted him in front of the press — Peter was the first to post the whole video.

Keeping Fidesz guessing

Peter Magyar is incredibly clever in keeping Fidesz (and the media) guessing. He leaves little Easter Eggs of newsworthy news or updates on a daily basis.

For example, when Pope Francis died Peter was the first to announce he would be going to the funeral. At Easter, he didn’t just post a stock-standard “Happy Easter” photo, he dressed up in traditional dress and went to Holloko where he took part in the local tradition of throwing a bucket of water on his girlfriend. When the President said he was no longer doing the New Year’s Eve address — Peter jumped in and said he would do it himself. At the March 15th commemorations, instead of wearing a suit for his speech he came dressed in a traditional suit with a classic Hungarian cord motif.

He is a consummate political maverick.

Logo is in the tri-colour

For the longest time, Fidesz tried to take ownership of patriotic symbols and therefore the opposition saw it as kind of naff to be patriotic and proud.

Peter turned this on its head. He encourages flags and cocades. He sings patriotic songs at his rallies. At the end of rallies he asks people to hold hands as a sign of unity. He says things like “There’s no Left, or Right, only Hungarian.” He loves Hungarian poetry. And, above all else, the Tisza logo is in red, white and green — one of the rare parties in Hungary that have the tri-colour in their logo. This means every time Tisza appears anywhere it is a reinforcement of its patriotism.

Hungarians are predominantly conservative, centre-Right. They will never go for a Lefty party. Peter and his leadership team have been so clever in positioning themselves as equally patriotic to Fidesz — meaning that this is no longer an election factor.

The only trap that Tisza mustn’t fall into is being painted as woke, Lefty, EU shills due to it’s pro-Europe stance, because despite the overwhelming number of Hungarians wanting to remain as part of the EU, paining Peter as an “stooge” could drive a wedge with some voters.

Fast reaction times

Facebook being the primary way Peter can communicate with the masses, he spends a lot of time on the platform. If there is a news article about him, he will write his response in the comments straight away (often getting more Likes than the original news post). This means that any negative news coverage is automatically countered so that the negative story can’t take hold without his point of view balancing it out.

He will also reply to comments from fans or detractors, which makes him seem in-touch with the community.

Contrast this with Orban who never comments — it’s like he’s never been on his own Facebook page. And whose Facebook looks very much curated by a social media team so it lacks that personal touch.

He also responds to news events quickly, and this leaves Fidesz looking like it is trailing behind. When Pope Francis died, Peter was the first to announce that he would be attending the funeral. When Fidesz announced it would do a national consultation about Ukraine’s entry into the EU, Peter said “Don’t worry about it, we’ll ask that question as part of our Nation’s Voice survey.” Peter yet again beat Fidesz to the post — as Tisza had already run its survey and announced the results before Fidesz even got started.

(This article may be updated from time to time after the original publication date)