"There was such a surge of energy around the regime change that it swept me up as a child."
As a child, Peter Madyar, inspired by the first democratic elections in Hungary in 1990, taped a photo of Viktor Orban, who was then a fierce anti-communist, on the wall of his bedroom. Decades later, he hopes to bring an end to Orban's 16-year tenure as Prime Minister, Reuters reports.
Madyar, who was only nine years old when Soviet communism collapsed, recounted that he decorated the walls of his home in Budapest with photos of leading political figures. Orban, then a young lawyer, became a hero of the Hungarian pro-democracy movement when he publicly demanded the withdrawal of Soviet troops from the country in 1989.
"There was such a surge of energy around the regime change that it swept me up as a child," Madyar said in the Fokuszcsoport podcast last year.
Currently, most opinion polls show that Madyar's center-right, pro-European party, Tisa, is leading over Orban's nationalist party, Fidesz, ahead of the parliamentary elections in Hungary on April 12.
Madyar, whose surname literally means "Hungarian," came into the spotlight two years ago after his ex-wife, former Justice Minister of Orban, Judit Varga, stepped down from all political positions following a pardon in a high-profile sexual assault case.
Madyar quickly distanced himself from the ruling party and accused it of corruption and spreading propaganda, stating that he was disillusioned with Fidesz.
Madyar promised to restore Hungary's orientation towards the West and end its energy dependence on Russia by 2035, while seeking "pragmatic relations" with Moscow. He also pledged to unblock frozen EU funds, which would help revive Hungary's stagnant economy.
Unlike Orban, he does not fundamentally reject Ukraine's right to eventually join the EU, but Tisa's program does not support expedited membership for Kyiv. Like Fidesz, Tisa opposes EU quotas for accepting migrants and will also maintain the border fence built under Orban to prevent illegal migration.
Madyar was born in 1981 to a family of lawyers and studied law himself. In 2006, he married Varga, and when her career took her to Brussels, Madyar joined Hungary's diplomatic corps and worked on EU legislation. After returning to Hungary, he took a job at a state bank and later headed the student loan agency.
Madyar and Varga, who divorced in 2023, have three sons.
Madyar describes himself as a religious person and says he enjoys cooking and playing soccer with friends and his sons.
When asked in December how he has changed since entering politics, Madyar referred to media reports describing him as hot-tempered and said, "Now I count to 10."
