Viktor Orbán’s competence, Fidesz’s moral credibility and even the party’s continued existence are being put to members in a leaked confidential survey launched after its crushing April election defeat, suggesting the former governing party may finally be questioning previously untouchable assumptions.
The questionnaire, obtained by Blikk and confirmed as genuine by Fidesz, asks members to identify the main reasons for the defeat. Options include detachment from voters’ everyday problems, economic dissatisfaction, an excessively negative campaign, more effective campaigning by Tisza and the possibility that voters found Tisza’s programme more attractive.
More unusually, the survey explicitly raises a loss of ‘moral credibility’, citing major scandals from the final years of the Orbán government that struck areas central to Fidesz’s political identity, such as child protection and the pardon scandal that ended President Katalin Novák’s tenure. Corruption, although in a very soft formulation—‘handling public assets irresponsibly’—also got a place on the list.
Members are also asked whether Fidesz should undergo complete transformation and rejuvenation, launch a new right-wing movement or, in the most drastic option, dissolve Fidesz altogether and establish a brand-new conservative party with new people.
‘Orbán himself is also no longer treated as politically untouchable’
Orbán himself is also no longer treated as politically untouchable. Respondents are invited to rate the competence of several senior Fidesz politicians, including Orbán, János Lázár, Péter Szijjártó, Gergely Gulyás and Tibor Navracsics. Members can also leave a direct message for the former prime minister.
That list is also revealing. Hungary’s new constitutional rules bar anyone who has served as an MP for at least 12 years, or has been elected at least three times, from standing again. All five have reached that threshold, meaning that the rating is definitely not about the next parliamentary line-up. Instead, members are being asked to judge the competence of the political generation that dominated the party during its years in power.
Orbán is separately barred from returning as prime minister under the new retrospective eight-year limit, leaving the central question of whether he remains fit to lead Fidesz itself. There are several European examples, such as Jarosław Kaczyński, leader of the Law and Justice (PiS) party, of party leaders deliberately pulling back from parliamentary politics. PiS recently broke apart, as former prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki’s Development Plus faction took around 50 members from Kaczyński’s party.
The questionnaire also puts Fidesz’s resistance politics under review. Members are asked whether the party should pursue a harder, combative opposition line or focus on professional, constructive criticism. During his first Tusványos speech in July, Orbán specifically argued that there was no time for self-reflection, as Fidesz needed to resist and protect both members and supporters from what he described as the ‘authoritarian rule’ of Tisza and Péter Magyar.
Fidesz press chief Bertalan Havasi confirmed the questionnaire to 24.hu on Tuesday, stating that he himself had filled it in. He said it formed part of a full organizational, infrastructural and personnel assessment commissioned by Orbán and the Fidesz presidency, describing the process as an ‘honest self-reflection’.
Its significance will become clearer in September. Havasi said the presidency would evaluate the assessment and take the necessary ‘organizational, personnel and structural decisions’, giving the exercise potentially concrete consequences.
According to media reports, former transport minister János Lázár has been tasked with leading the wider review, including visits to local Fidesz organizations to assess the condition of the party’s nationwide network. He is expected to submit his findings to the presidency in September as well.
As usual, Prime Minister Magyar immediately reacted to the leaked questionnaire, ridiculing the project as Fidesz now asking its remaining voters about ‘its own dissolution’, presenting it as evidence that Hungary had already undergone a political regime change.
The latest polling data already urge Fidesz to take the self-reflection seriously and decide on its strategy soon. Europion’s August survey put Tisza at 61 per cent among certain voters with a party preference, down three points from July, making it the second consecutive decline, although minimal. Fidesz, however, remained at 25 per cent, similarly to July, meaning it did not manage to profit from Tisza’s slip. Meanwhile, hard-right Our Homeland rose from 8 to 10 per cent. According to Europion, among those who voted for Fidesz in the April election, 14 per cent now said they would back the party to its right, compared with 8 per cent moving to Tisza and 13 per cent becoming undecided.
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