BUDAPEST – Opposition leader Peter Magyar spoke out Thursday against a controversial campaign advertisement released by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party, which features an emotionally charged scene of a young girl crying at a window while witnessing her father’s wartime execution.
With Hungary’s parliamentary election scheduled for April 12, Orban has framed the contest as a decision between “war and peace,” claiming that Magyar’s center-right Tisza party would force Hungary into Ukraine’s conflict with Russia under pressure from the European Union.
The Tisza party has maintained its commitment to peace, stating it would not provide weapons or military personnel to Ukraine.
The brief 33-second advertisement, shared on the Budapest branch of Fidesz’s Facebook page, shows a blindfolded Hungarian soldier kneeling on a rain-soaked battlefield before being shot. Text accompanying the video states: “This is only a nightmare now, but Brussels is preparing to make it a reality … Let’s not take risks. Fidesz is the safe choice!”
Magyar issued a statement describing the video as “sickening, unforgivable and deeply outrageous.” “This is not politics, this is soulless manipulation,” he declared.
During a press conference, Orban’s chief of staff noted that more than one thousand casualties occur daily in Ukraine’s ongoing conflict.
“What we see is the reality of the war,” stated Gergely Gulyas.
Gulyas did not dispute that artificial intelligence technology was used to create the video, which enables the production of realistic, complex scenes without traditional filming methods or performers.
Last October, Magyar submitted a criminal complaint alleging that one of Orban’s senior political advisors used deepfake technology to create a false representation of him in another campaign advertisement without proper disclosure.
The ruling Fidesz party has frequently employed AI-created election content in recent months, with some videos properly labeled and others not identified as artificially generated. The European Union’s upcoming AI Act will require mandatory disclosure of such content.
Reuters verified that Google’s AI technology was utilized in creating the war-themed video.
A Thursday poll from the 21 Research Centre revealed that 23% of voters think Tisza would involve Hungary in the Ukraine conflict if elected.
Among Fidesz supporters, 57% agreed with this assessment, while virtually no Tisza supporters shared this view.
Current polling shows Tisza maintaining an 8-12 point advantage over Orban’s Fidesz party, although government-affiliated pollsters continue to report the ruling party in the lead.
