With the organized parade of tens of thousands of supporters from all over the country and a fiery speech against the EU, the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban opened his campaign for next spring's parliamentary elections on Saturday.
The institutions of the European Union would want to dictate to the citizens of Hungary and Poland how they should live, said the right-wing politician in the center of Budapest.
"The high European dignitaries want to beat us to" Europeans ", to (towards sexual diversity)" sensitized ", to liberals", he said.
But when it comes to "defending the home, the family, the culture, the freedom of everyday life", everyone has to make their contribution.
“When the time comes, stand in front of your houses and defend them!” He added.
Orban has been ruling Hungary with the Fidesz party for almost twelve years.
Critics accuse him of dismantling democracy and the rule of law as well as corruption and nepotism.
His government is involved in numerous serious conflicts with the EU, for example over the state of the rule of law in Hungary.
Opposition supporters also gathered
The rally participants were brought to Budapest in buses from all over the country, but also from Romania, Poland and Italy.
Hundreds of buses were parked on the edge of the main downtown streets.
Hungary celebrated a national holiday on Saturday.
On October 23, 1956, the popular uprising against communist rule broke out.
After a few days he was bloodily suppressed by Soviet troops.
Several thousand opposition supporters gathered about two kilometers from Orban's rally.
Six parties from the left-green to the right-wing conservative want to stand together in the 2022 election.
In a self-organized primary one week earlier, the non-party bourgeois Peter Marki-Zay had been elected as the joint top candidate.
As the final speaker at the rally, Marki-Zay swore the opposition alliance to continue to show unity: "It all boils down to a single question: Fidesz or non-Fidesz."