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Election poster in Budapest for opposition candidate Gergely Karacsony. REUTERS / Bernadett Szabo

And if the opposition to Viktor Orban succeeded "the blow of Istanbul"? Conquering the mayor of Budapest, as opponents of power have done in the Turkish metropolis, is the goal of the Hungarian left who rallied beyond his camp for Sunday's municipal elections.

With our special correspondent in Budapest , Anissa el-Jabri

For the first time in a decade, the national conservative party of the Hungarian prime minister is not sure of a landslide victory in the capital of the Danube, where the outgoing mayor, Istvan Tarlos, confronts a candidate dubbed by the principal opposition parties.

It is in a tense atmosphere that the campaign unfolds, like a banal press conference when after a few tens of seconds, the opposition candidate must interrupt the voice covered by a music of circus. He and his supporters are also caricatured as puppets by the party in power.

In addition to this folkloric aspect, which is much less smile in the opposition, it is the wiretapping of political meetings or a raid of police in local of campaign, explains Tessa Udvarhely, director of campaign of the opposition in a key district.

" To be perfectly honest, I was very scared and outraged because for me the police were used for political purposes. It scared me too and I figured if that kind of thing can happen what will be the next step ... "

Racist insults and names of birds, the climate has tense in the final stretch, Judge Ferenc Miklos Kamara Bereczki: " Never has there been so much aggression, ad hominem attacks, low blows during a campaign. The pro-government camp is unable to fight a fair game . "

This deleterious climate is for the opposition the sign of a febrile power, anxious to lose the capital. The polls give the two main candidates elbow to elbow.