“Magyar describes himself as center-right, and hopes to mend Budapest’s ties with Brussels should he win.”

“Magyar’s Tisza is currently leading Fidesz by 49 points to 39, according to an aggregate compiled by Politico.”

“A poll by the 21 Research Center, which is financed by the European Commission, shows Tisza leading Fidesz by 19 points.”

“Another [poll] by the opposition-linked Median shows Magyar’s party 23 points ahead of Orban’s.”

“Conversely, a poll by the Center for Fundamental Rights – a conservative think tank – places Fidesz eight points ahead of Tisza.”

“Last month, opposition journalist Szabolcs Panyi accused Russia of sending “political technologists” to Budapest to swing the election for Orban, without explaining how they planned on doing this.”

“The report – which was attributed to nameless EU spies and published by an EU-funded outlet – was taken by Brussels as proof that Russia planned to meddle with the vote, and used to justify the bloc’s own interference, in this case the activation of its online censorship tools in Hungary.”

“Panyi became embroiled in an election meddling scandal of his own when it emerged that he had collaborated with EU intelligence agents – possibly the same sources who fed him the ‘Russian interference’ story – to wiretap Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto.”

“The wiretap revealed conversations between Szijjarto and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.”

“Kiev has refused to restart the flow of Russian oil through the Druzhba pipeline, which carries Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia via Ukraine, claiming that the pipeline was damaged in a Russian air raid in January.”

“Orban maintains that Druzhba is operational, and that Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky is keeping it closed in order to drive up energy costs in Hungary and hamper his efforts.”