On 23 October 2006, Budapest’s streets filled with tear gas, burning barricades and bloodied demonstrators. Hungary was marking the 50th anniversary of the 1956 Revolution when riot police fired rubber bullets at protesters, leaving civilians seriously injured. 20 years have passed, yet much of the responsibility for the police violence remains contested, while the country is, if anything, even more deeply divided politically.
The unrest began on 17 September, when a recording emerged of then-Socialist prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsány’s speech to party members at Balatonőszöd four months earlier. Having won re-election in April, Gyurcsány admitted that his government had lied about its record and concealed the true state of the country’s finances. ‘We lied in the morning, at night and in the evening,’ he said; his remarks have since become catchphrases in Hungarian politics. After the recording became public, thousands gathered outside Parliament demanding his resignation.
The following evening, demonstrators marched from Kossuth Square to the headquarters of the public broadcaster, demanding airtime for their petition. A young László Toroczkai, now leader of the hard-right Our Homeland party, helped lead the march; protesters subsequently stormed the building, clashing with police and setting vehicles ablaze. Many officers were injured. The Socialist government portrayed the unrest as extremist violence, while demonstrators argued that Gyurcsány had forfeited his mandate by lying to voters and manipulating favourable statistical data during the campaign.
Footage collection from 2006:
10 éve történt – Az MTV ostroma – 2006. szeptember 18.
Tíz évvel ezelőtt, 2006. szeptember 17-én került nyilvánosságra az a felvétel, amely az évtized politikai botrányát robbantotta ki. Gyurcsány Ferenc akkor miniszterelnök, az MSZP elnöke az év májusában Balatonőszödön trágár kifejezésekkel tarkított beszédében ismerte el: hazudtak az ország állapotáról a választóknak. A felvételt három és fél hónap múlva juttatták el több médiumhoz.
After the siege of the television headquarters, demonstrations continued for weeks, sometimes entirely peacefully and sometimes resulting in clashes with the authorities. Then came 23 October. Police moved to clear the protest camp in Kossuth Square outside Parliament ahead of the official state ceremony, a decision that resulted in fighting that spread across central Budapest. One of the most memorable moments of the day came when protesters commandeered a Soviet-era T-34 tank from the anniversary display and drove it towards police lines. On 23 October 2006, Budapest really felt as though it was 1956 again.
Police cracked down on protesters with water cannons, tear gas, mounted charges and rubber bullets. Their operations also swept up peaceful demonstrators, bystanders and people leaving Fidesz’s separate commemoration near Astoria. Several suffered severe eye injuries; Fidesz MP Máriusz Révész was beaten by police. Officers without visible identification assaulted civilians, while detained protesters also described serious mistreatment and beatings. The Hungarian Helsinki Committee later concluded that police had exceeded the lawful limits of force on a large scale.
T-34 tank used in Budapest protests 2006
Anti-government protesters start up a T-34 tank that was part of an exhibition commemorating the 1956 uprising.
The scenes immediately invoked a deeply awkward historical analogy for the Socialist Party, the heir to Hungary’s former communist ruling party, prompting outrage on the right over claims that the governing left had never fully broken with its authoritarian practices. Fidesz made the events part of its narrative of national resistance against the political heirs of communism, successfully presenting itself as the defender of those mistreated by the state.
The political consequences lasted far beyond the protests. Gyurcsány remained prime minister until 2009, but the Őszöd speech, the police crackdown and the subsequent economic crisis severely damaged the governing Socialists. In 2010, Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz–KDNP won 263 of Parliament’s 386 seats, securing its first two-thirds majority. The Socialists, who had won 190 seats in 2006, fell to just 59.
The downfall of Hungary’s traditional left, however, did not stop in 2010. In fact, it is now weaker than at any point in the post-communist era, with no left-wing party represented in Parliament in the current cycle. The Socialist Party has effectively become extinct, while the Democratic Coalition, founded by Gyurcsány after a split in 2011, secured an embarrassing 1.18 per cent in April’s election. The former Socialist prime minister withdrew from politics before the vote, leaving his party in the hands of his ex-wife, Klára Dobrev. Other progressive parties did not run in the 2026 election, ostensibly to avoid siphoning votes from Magyar’s Tisza Party, but in reality, they have virtually no support.
The three parliamentary parties—Tisza, Fidesz–KDNP, which ran as an alliance during the election but has separate factions in Parliament, and Our Homeland—each have a distinct connection to 2006. Toroczkai was among the organizers of the September demonstrations; Fidesz’s rise to dominance was inseparable from its campaign against Gyurcsány; while Magyar worked as a young legal trainee helping victims through the Ne Féljetek! Foundation.
The Scars That Remain
The question of accountability, however, remains unresolved. While some officers were prosecuted and compensation was awarded in individual cases, punishment of senior commanders was limited. Former Budapest police chief Péter Gergényi received a HUF 400,000 fine (around $1,200) in 2017 for a failure of command, while former national police chief László Bene was acquitted. The proceedings left broader questions about responsibility for the police violence unanswered.
That has now prompted a renewed push for accountability, as the National Legal Defence Service announced this month that it plans to submit a revised criminal complaint against former political and police leaders, seeking their prosecution for terrorism-related offences.
The initiative comes as previously restricted records are also being made public. In September, the government released summaries of cabinet meetings held during the unrest, offering further insight into the Gyurcsány administration’s mishandling of the crisis, although the documents do not establish who ordered individual police actions.
‘20 years later, Hungary has undergone two major political transformations, yet the deep divisions that emerged in 2006 have hardly disappeared’
Despite how significant 2006 was for Hungarian politics, and how devastatingly the events affected many lives, there is still no permanent memorial to them in Budapest. A campaign to change that has also returned to the agenda ahead of the 20th anniversary. Organizers of the Memento 2006 initiative want a statue near Dohány Street depicting one demonstrator holding László Nagy after he was struck in the eye by a police projectile. They appealed to Magyar in September to support its construction. That such a monument remains absent after 16 years of Fidesz rule is itself part of the anniversary’s political debate, considering how important the riots and their aftermath were to Orbán’s political mythology.
20 years later, Hungary has undergone two major political transformations, yet the deep divisions that emerged in 2006 have hardly disappeared. The old Socialist–Fidesz confrontation has given way to a rivalry between Tisza and Fidesz, while political loyalties have become increasingly tribal, with opponents often regarded as enemies rather than rivals. This is hardly unique to Hungary, as much of the Western world struggles with similar divisions, yet the legacy of 2006 remains particularly significant and unresolved in the nation’s collective memory.
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