Opposition challenger Péter Magyar is ahead in the polls on a promise of hope. Orbán is betting on fear of war to stay in powerAfter 16 years of uninterrupted power, Viktor Orbán is facing his biggest electoral challenge. For years Hungary’s prime minister has spun weak policy performance as su ccess. The rise of a rival, Péter Magyar, and the opposition Tisza party has exposed the limits of that strategy.The economy is stagnating, despite repeated promises of a long-awaited takeoff. Over the past decade and a half, Hungary has slipped from being one of central and eastern Europe’s strongest performers to one of its weakest. Public services, from healthcare to transport, are widely seen as neglected, and Policy Solutions surveys show that voters have noticed. Hungary is not alone in facing a cost of living crisis, but comparisons offer little consolation to voters who were assured that Orbán’s model would deliver exceptional results.András Bíró-Nagy is a senior research fellow at the ELTE Centre for Social Sciences in Budapest and director of Policy Solutions. He is the author of The Path of Hungary’s EU Membership Continue reading... ...read more read less