BUDAPEST: Tens of thousands rallied in Budapest on Saturday in support of a former government insider turned critic of premier Viktor Orban, as he outlined his plans to try to challenge the nationalist leader.

The protest against Orban’s government was called by lawyer and former insider Peter Magyar, who has been shaking up Hungarian politics since he shot into prominence in the wake of a child abuse pardon scandal.

About 100,000 people gathered at Budapest’s Kossuth Square in front of the parliament, with many carrying national flags and holding up signs that read “Hungarians rise!” “We will take back our country step by step, and brick by brick we will build a sovereign, modern Hungary,” Magyar told a cheering crowd.

He said he would soon announce the creation of a new political party to run in European and local elections in June.

Magyar, 43, is the ex-husband of Orban’s former justice minister Judit Varga and has long been in the orbit of the ruling Fidesz party until he parted ways, vowing to challenge Orban’s “power factory” by forming a new political party.

Varga was forced to stand down from public life over the pardon scandal and Magyar has since emerged as a fierce Orban critic.

Last month, Magyar released a recording allegedly implicating a top minister in a high-profile corruption case, and called for the chief prosecutor to resign.

Published in Dawn, April 7th, 2024