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“I suggest that the organisers of Budapest Pride don’t put much effort into planning this year. It is a waste of time and money.” – said Viktor Orbán in late February in his annual address to his faithful. A few months later, his party, Fidesz, modified the Hungarian constitution so that “the display and promotion of homosexuality” can be banned from public spaces under the guise of “child protection.” Those who would organise and partake in such events were threatened with fines, possibly as high as £400.
Orbán had to make his annual early-year address in a tense environment for a second year in a row. Last February, Hungary was engulfed by a major political scandal when President Katalin Novák resigned after it emerged that she pardoned the deputy principal of an orphanage who tried to cover up the systemic sexual abuse of children.
Since then, Fidesz has struggled to take back control of the narrative. While the party won the European elections last June, Péter Magyar’s new Tisza Party, directly spawned by the clemency scandal, gained 30% of the votes. Since then, by constantly touring the country and highlighting the dire state of Hungary’s railways and healthcare, Magyar’s party has slowly overtaken Fidesz and is now in a consistent, clear lead with even a possibility of a constitutional majority in 2026.
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This sparked a visible panic in Fidesz, resulting in increasingly authoritarian measures. Apart from the Pride ban, in the past few months, Fidesz attempted to dismantle the independent Hungarian press by banning any form of foreign funding. In a speech in March, Orbán called his opponents “bedbugs.” Earlier this year, the government introduced legislation allowing for the suspension of dual nationals’ Hungarian citizenship.
Meanwhile the Government upped their dehumanising rhetoric towards the LGBT community, with ministers cynically suggesting that Pride should be held at Kincsem Park, Hungary’s national horse race course. Fidesz elevated their anti-Ukraine rhetoric too. Prominent Fidesz politician Alexandra Szentkirályi posted a video of herself with a handcuffed man behind her in the trunk of a car, suggesting that if Ukraine joins the EU, Hungarians will fall victim to people smugglers.
However, what is really different from the Government’s current aggressive communications campaigns, compared to previous years is that this time, they simply do not seem to work. Fidesz keeps making unforced errors, previously uncharacteristic of Viktor Orbán. Efforts to relaunch Hungary’s battered economy have been failing constantly despite repeated grandiose statements.
Orbán’s endorsement of the far-right politician George Simion, who partly rose to prominence through his vandalising of graves of Hungarian soldiers in the presidential elections of Romania drew backlash even among his own supporters. Orbán even failed to push through the proposed legislation intended to target independent media due to opposition from within his own party. This is an extremely rare occurrence, both because of the size of his majority and his grip on the party.
The Budapest Pride ban failed spectacularly, too. Upon Orbán’s original remarks, organisers immediately announced they would go ahead with the march anyway. The exact plans were kept under wraps for a long time, but two weeks before the event, it was revealed that the Budapest City Council would help organise Pride. Mayor Gergely Karácsony announced the council would revive a tradition of holding an event on the last Saturday of June, commemorating the Soviet troops’ departure from Hungary.
The event was named Budapesti Büszkeség Menete (The Pride of Budapest March), co-organised with the civil organisers of Budapest Pride. As Karácsony stated, the attendees would come to Pride in their hearts, but strictly legally speaking, they would attend a different event. Exercising this legal loophole was crucial, as events organised by local councils in Hungary are not required to seek permission from the police.
The event itself exceeded all expectations. Organisers estimate that between 180,000-200,000 people marched in good spirits from Central Budapest’s Deák Tér to the Budapest University of Technology and Economics in 30-degree heat. The event not only turned out to be the largest ever in Budapest Pride’s 30-year history, but also the largest ever protest during Viktor Orbán’s tenure.
In the end, Fidesz’s decision to ban the march only resulted in providing a continuous five-month promotion campaign for the event, drawing in people who never attended Pride before: “No one’s rights to assembly should be restricted. The government should stay out of people’s business. I’m a teacher and I have colleagues who are members of the LGBT community, and they have never harmed any children, “ – one of the marchers told Byline Times.
The event clearly moved the Hungarian diaspora as well. There were reports of Hungarians flying home for the weekend from all over Europe. The day before Budapest Pride, London Luton Airport was full of same-sex parents and queer people boarding the flight to attend. The news of the event clearly reached the wider European LGBT community too, as many also arrived to partake from different countries. Prominent European politicians and activists, including Greta Thunberg, were also present.
The march was peaceful from start to finish. Several political parties and civil organisations represented themselves with their own trucks. Counter protesters belonging to various far-right groups blockaded Budapest’s Szabadság Bridge (which was set to be part of the parade’s original route), but with police assistance, the march modified its route by crossing the Danube on Elizabeth Bridge instead. This left the counter-protesters stranded on the wrong bridge, being forced to watch the march pass them by. Some far-right counterprotesters occasionally managed to break into the march’s way and halt it for a short time despite police efforts, but were quickly escorted away.
The parade was led by Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony alongside several local mayors as well as other European politicians. MEPs, ministers from different European governments, and the current European Commissioner for Equality, Hadja Lahbib, all partook in the event.
The record attendance at Pride is particularly impressive, given that it did not focus on material, bread-and-butter issues but human-rights matters concerning a minority of the population. Such high numbers are even more remarkable as there was one notable absentee among the prominent attendees: Péter Magyar and the Tisza Party. Due to tactical reasons, the brand new, right-of-centre, opposition party purposefully stayed clear of the discourse around Pride, so as not to alienate former Fidesz voters among their ranks.
Their councillors even boycotted the sitting of the Budapest City Council after it emerged that Fidesz would propose a motion condemning Karácsony’s decision to assist in organising Budapest Pride. Before the event, the only support Pride received from Magyar was a quick statement before he left on a tactically-timed holiday, essentially saying that under a Tisza government, the freedom of assembly would not be restricted, and called for the police to protect the Hungarian people on the day, “even from the government’s own people.” It was only on Sunday, after Pride proved to be a success, that Magyar even used the word “Pride” to describe Saturday’s event, when he labelled it “one of Europe’s largest civil rights events.”
Magyar’s absence allowed Hungary’s older, left-wing and liberal opposition, long considered politically dead since Tisza’s emergence, to be more involved this time. Former MEP Katalin Cseh from the liberal Momentum party clearly utilised her Brussels connections to mobilise her wider European party family, Renew Europe. Momentum will not contest next year’s election, but they managed to significantly contribute to the event’s international appeal.
“It has always been important for us to stand up for civil and minority rights. After we decided not to contest the 2026 election, initiatives like attending Pride and legal assistance for attendees have become even more prominent features in our activities.” – said Annamária Karvalits, a Momentum councillor in Budapest.
Another progressive party, the grassroots MKKP was the most vocal in the Budapest City Council in helping Karácsony build the capital’s pro-LGBT image. The party’s chair, Dávid Nagy heavily criticised Tisza’s decision to boycott the council’s session last week for tactical reasons due to the Pride issue: “Whatever Tisza does, the government will claim they are pro-LGBT anyway. But if such accusations are combined with a perception that they are unable to govern, that is much more dangerous and poses an actual risk.”
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Like Momentum, MKKP was also present at Pride and previously announced the establishment of a fund to help people in case they were fined. “We’ve always attended Pride, and now that Fidesz decided to restrict the freedom of assembly, it was even more important.” – Nagy told this paper.
But the politician who got out the most positively from Saturday’s events is no doubt Budapest mayor Gergely Karácsony. It was likely his key ally and Budapest City Ambassador to Brussels, Benedek Jávor, who managed to mobilise prominent members of the European Green Party, whose logo featured prominently on stage, as one of the key organisers of the event.
The long-time political survivor Gergely Karácsony has now raised his profile significantly internationally and cemented his support nationally. He was made to be the key face of Budapest Pride after he was threatened with a year-long prison sentence by Justice Minister Bence Tuzson for encouraging the population to attend a “banned event” last week. Karácsony utilised the local governmental toolkits at his disposal as mayor to “make politics” in a broader sense than city management, something he has long been criticised for failing to do.
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Karácsony now seems to have succeeded as mayor in defining Budapest’s identity in progressivism and direct opposition to Orbán. “Budapest will always stand by those whose freedom is threatened, be it the press, civilians, or Ukraine.” – he said in his speech at the end of the march. The mayor pulled off another feat of political survival and is now likely to feature prominently even in Hungary’s post-Orbán era politics. At the very least, his place in history books is now guaranteed.
Hungarian media is already comparing this year’s Pride to the 1988 protests against the Gabčíkovo–Nagymaros dams. Then, environmentalist protesters defied an authoritarian regime by marching through Budapest despite possible repercussions. That protest is now considered to be a quintessential moment in Hungary’s transition from communism to democracy.
Whether Pride will have the same, regime-changing effect in a year’s time cannot be said for certain, of course. What is for sure however, is that on Saturday, Viktor Orbán’s Government suffered a humiliating and, in a large part, self-inflicted defeat. Fidesz appears to have lost the ability to read the public mood, and with the dire state of the economy, it is hard to see what could change their fortunes and drastically reverse the current healthy Tisza lead in the polls.
But those who were afraid that it was only possible to play politics in Hungary in a right-wing key need to be scared no more. The 30th Budapest Pride made it clear that progressivism is alive in Hungary. Its current and future leaders ignore this at their own peril.