Hungary is no stranger to extremely polarized election campaigns.

For decades now, Victor Orban has — whether in government or in the opposition — followed the same playbook: Starting months ahead of the polls, he has run campaigns that suggest the very survival of the Hungarian nation is at stake.

In these campaigns, he styles himself as the only one who can save Hungary and its people from evil and the threat of destruction at the hands of the country's enemies.

Hungary is due to elect a new parliament on April 12, and this time, the campaign is more negative than ever.

Nonsense and fabrications

Orban, his government and his party, Fidesz, have no qualms about papering the country with thousands upon thousands of anti-Ukrainian posters, using taxpayers' money to organize a "national petition" against the EU and Ukraine, and flooding social media with AI-generated fake videos about the opposition.

These videos all have one thing in common: They spread nonsense and fabrications. The prime minister and his team are essentially claiming that if Orban loses the election, the country will face war, mobilization on the Ukrainian front, and enslavement and mass impoverishment as a result of tax increases from Brussels.

In view of this particularly extreme campaign, Gabor Torok — an otherwise sober political scientist — has already spoken of the "decline and fall" of political culture.

Could Orban lose the election?

The reason for this downward spiral is quite simply the real possibility that Orban could lose power for the first time since 2010.

People have in general grown weary of what they see as the corrupt, arrogant and autocratic Orban system.

For months now, Peter Magyar and his opposition Tisza party have been clearly and consistently ahead in opinion polls.

At the same time, the prime minister and his government are struggling with the fallout from a number of self-inflicted public scandals that could all safely be filed under "Lies and double standards."

Child abuse scandal

The first of these scandals relates to serious violence and the sexual abuse of minors at a juvenile facility in Budapest. New aspects of the story have gradually been coming to light over the past few months.

The facility, which was more or less a brutal prison for young offenders, has since been closed. Leaked videos have shown shocking scenes of staff violence at the facility.

Government representatives apparently knew about conditions in the facility for quite some time, but did nothing, even though child protection — coupled with homophobia — is a major theme for Orban's government. Indeed, the government likes to claim that it is protecting Hungarian children against "Brussels' LGBTQ+ propaganda" and the supposed abuse that this will lead to.

Orban and some members of his government and party also seemed to suggest a few weeks ago that the victims themselves were responsible by pointing out that they were criminals.

In doing so, they seemed to imply that civic and human rights could be revoked at will. This was greeted with even greater opposition from some parts of Hungarian society.

Ignoring health hazards at a battery plant

Earlier this week, Hungary was rocked by revelations about environmental and health hazards at a Samsung battery plant in God, a town north of Budapest.

According to research conducted by the Hungarian news site Telex.hu, staff at the factory have for years been exposed to poisonous heavy metal particles, and this dust was emitted into the air, the soil and the groundwater. Documents show that levels were in some cases over 500 times higher than permissible limits.

The Hungarian government was apparently aware of this. It is claimed that even the Hungarian domestic intelligence agency AH warned the government of the catastrophic situation. Nevertheless, it is reported that Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto stopped the closure of the plant.

There are also reports that when the anti-corruption website Atlatszo.hu first wrote about the matter in early 2024, the government considered how best to silence the site.

The story is so explosive because Orban's government has for years been pushing the massive development of battery production in Hungary and sees it as a pillar of the country's forward-looking economic and technology policy.

To this end, Chinese and South Korean investors were brought in. Despite numerous local protests, court cases and concerns voiced by experts, the government repeatedly moved ahead with its plans.

Scandal about a possible sex video

And then there is the story of a supposed sex video involving opposition leader Peter Magyar, which has the Hungarian public on tenterhooks.

A few days ago, a black-and-white photo of an unmade bed in a bedroom appeared on a mysterious website named after — but not belonging to — Tisza's deputy leader Mark Radnai. The image was taken from the perspective of what would appear to be a security camera.

After days of speculation, Magyar himself posted a Facebook video about the photo on February 12. In it, he said that he had had "consensual sex" with a former girlfriend in that room on August 3, 2024. He also said that there had been drugs on a table in the apartment, but that he had not taken any.

Magyar initially accused the woman in question of having filmed him in this situation on behalf of Orban's government and Fidesz and said the whole thing was a "Russian-style campaign" to deflect attention from the "death factory" in God.

Soon after, his ex-girlfriend told Hungarian media that she had known nothing of the matter and suggested to Magyar that if such a video was published, they could bring charges together.

Fidesz no longer dominant

To date, neither Orban nor any other member of the government or Fidesz has made any concrete statements as to whether the publication of a sex video involving Magyar was planned.

By addressing the matter head on, however, Magyar has put the powers that be on the back foot, indirectly showing them to be willing — out of fear of losing power — to stoop to primitive methods such as the publication of a sex video in order to divert attention from other scandals.

In an interview with "Campaign Noise Filter," a program by DW's Hungarian Service, political scientist Daniel Mikecz said that such scandals are ramping up the pressure on the Orban government.

"Before one scandal has blown over, a new one arrives," he said, adding that "Fidesz used to say that it had to dominate and win every day. Now we are seeing that they have to react to something every day. There is no more talk of domination."

This article was originally published in German.