Hungary election marked by heavy use of AI ^{CEFR B1}

Parliamentary elections in Hungary on April 12 are focused on the ruling FIDESZ party, led by Viktor Orbán, and the new opposition TISZA, led by Péter Magyar. The campaign has attracted attention for heavy use of artificial intelligence across campaign formats and for a polarising, "us versus them" tone from the government.

BBC polling on April 1 put FIDESZ at 35 percent and TISZA at 58 percent. Péter Magyar rose to national attention after a viral February 2024 appearance on the YouTube channel Partizán and launched TISZA the following month. FIDESZ has governed Hungary for 16 years and Orbán has been in office since 2010.

FIDESZ intensified targeted online campaigning in 2025 and organised activists in Facebook groups called Digital Civil Circles (DPKs). AI materials—including posters, realistic videos and a comic book claiming Magyar secretly supports Ursula von der Leyen—appeared on billboards, bus stops and online. Fact-checkers found much disinformation created with AI, and the EU AI Act, in force from August 2024, will only be fully applicable in August 2026, leaving the election in a regulatory grey zone.

Observers say this election is one of the first with widespread AI-generated political content. Zsófia Fülöp of the fact-checking site Lakmusz told the BBC that generative AI is now "omnipresent" in the ruling party’s communications, while a senior TISZA official said the party could show a way out of rising radical nationalism in Europe if it wins.