Having previously been seen as a model power couple, Magyar and Varga divorced in 2023, and he turned from Fidesz accomplice to whistleblower earlier this year. In March, he published recordings of a conversation with Varga in which she appears to confirm political interference in a corruption case against a former senior justice ministry official. Varga, for her part, is now accusing Magyar of having abused her while they were married.

Magyar’s turn against Fidesz comes amid a period of unusual turbulence for Orbán. Varga and President Katalin Novák unexpectedly resigned from public life in February, when it was revealed that a presidential pardon had been issued to a man convicted of covering up sexual abuse at a children’s home. This case — which so egregiously contradicted Fidesz’s conservative emphasis on child protection — may have provided the spark for a new movement to be born. On Saturday, Magyar affirmed those conservative characteristics that make Fidesz popular, including child protection and a focus on Christian principles, while condemning the party’s corruption.

Portraying his nascent movement as a more honest, enlightened evolution of Fidesz-style conservatism, Magyar railed against an “artificial” dichotomy between Orbán and “the Left” — the nation’s traditional opposition parties who, many feel, speak only for Budapest progressives. In so doing, Magyar will hope to win over voters who see no appeal in the traditional opposition but who are tired of Fidesz. As one protestor put it: “Magyar was a beneficiary of the system, he gave it up and turned his back on it — that shows something.”

A cynic could counter that it “shows something” that Magyar previously gained power and prominence as a willing member of what he now condemns as a deeply corrupt system. And Magyar’s movement may get caught in the same political shoals which doomed a “United Opposition” in Hungary’s last parliamentary elections. Then, the opposition selected a prime ministerial candidate with strong conservative and rural credentials in an attempt to challenge Orbán on his own turf, and were duly obliterated on election day.

Indeed, Magyar’s attempt at a new centre-right movement inadvertently highlights a key factor in Orbán’s success: the lack of space for any serious Right-wing challenger, achieved through a careful blending of centre-right and hard-Right policies and styles. By ensuring that each election is seen as a choice between Fidesz and “the Left”, Orbán always wins. Whether Magyar ends up being a bigger threat to the government or the opposition is a matter for debate, but for now Fidesz political director Balázs Orbán feels comfortable dismissing this new challenger, simply saying that “such characters come and go.”