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Hungarians are set to head to the ballots in April. Main opposition party Tisza is scoring well in polls, indicating that its leader Péter Magyar stands a high chance of becoming the country’s next prime minister, replacing incumbent Viktor Orbán. But despite paying lip service to a pro-European narrative, Magyar himself is a character who doesn’t shy away from confrontation to advance his career, an investigation shows. An analysis of Tisza’s voting pattern over the past years indicates that the party has remained largely mute on rule of law issues or support for Ukraine, amongst others. Why does it matter

The EU froze billions of euros that would have supported Hungary because of rule of law issues in the country. A deadline to implement changes to unlock funds by implementing rule of law reforms approaches in August – meaning that if a new prime minister was to be elected, Brussels would have to grapple with the question of whether and when to unfreeze those assets. Over the past few years, Europe’s diplomats have been frustrated with Orbán repeatedly throwing a spanner in the works of common EU policies, such as sanctions on Russia and support for Ukraine. With a potentially new leader in Budapest, Brussels hopes that a more constructive approach could be reached. How was this investigated

FTM’s Hungarian media partner Direkt36 spoke with dozens of officials, associates, and Magyar himself. FTM analysed dozens of votes pertaining to democracy and the rule of law in Hungary and other countries, as well as its voting behaviour when it comes to support for Ukraine.