Stoking ethnic tension in pre-election Hungary as neo-fascists march in Kálló
31 March 2026
On Saturday 28th March, an estimated 1000 supporters of Mi Hazánk Mozgalom (Our Homeland Movement), and members of its affiliate paramilitary groups marched in the village of Kálló, in what the party’s chairman László Toroczkai billed as a ‘pro-order’ demonstration. The motley crews, marching in uniform and out-of-step in defence of ‘law and order’, included the Outlaw Army, the Hatvannégy Vármegye Ifjúsági Mozgalom (HVIM) and the Hungarian Self-Defence Movement (MÖM).
According to 444.hu, a heavy police force manned a cordon dividing the main street in the small town of 1,500 people in Nógrád country, from morning to night on Saturday. No incidents or clashes were reported.
The rally went ahead after the Cúria (Supreme Court) overruled an earlier ban by the local police department. Following a confrontation with locals on 13th March, members of Mi Hazánk and their racist vigilantes turned tail and beat a hasty retreat from Kálló. Toroczkai then promised thousands would return: “The message is clear: if one is attacked, a thousand of us will come. Enough of fear! Enough of crime without consequences!”
The march was originally banned, according to the police statement, on the grounds that “the population living here would be directly, unnecessarily and disproportionately endangered by the possible permission for the assembly.”
The decision by the Cúria to reverse the ban provided Mi Hazánk with a high-viz election campaign event, as scores of supporters were bussed in from all corners of the country to rally behind the election slogan ‘Enough with Crime’.
There is no mistake about the racist dog whistling – this is the party that has pledged to prevent Hungary becoming a ‘Gypsy country’ (Cigányország); and which hopes to repeat its success in the 2022 general election, when Mi Hazánk won seven seats and emerged as the third largest party in the Hungarian Parliament. The Kálló set-piece confrontation promised more of a spectacle than Toroczkai's lacklustre stops on his nationwide tour.
For this reason, Roma civil organisations and the opposition front-runners Tisza urged their supporters to stay away and deny the far-right the slightest opportunity for any provocation that might exacerbate community tensions, or be used to discredit the opposition forces: "In the current situation, calm, patience and respect for each other are the most important."
Fidesz and Mi Hazánk: the racist nexus
The Orbán regime, beset by a cascade of scandals including espionage, kompromat, thuggish security firms, as well as routine corruption, is falling behind in the polls. A recent Median poll showed the opposition Tisza widening its lead to 23 percentage points among decided voters. Over the past 15 years, Hungary has for provided Europe and the US with a working template for ‘illiberal’ democracy shaped by nativism and overt racism. This April, Hungarian citizens hold the very real prospect of showing its neighbours how to defeat the far-right with its politics of hate, and restore a sense of hope for a truly democratic future.
This looming prospect of losing power, no doubt played in the mind of Minister of Transport and leading light in the Fidesz campaign, János Lázár, when he was moved to entertain the possibility of a collaboration with Mi Hazánk: “I think that pro-sovereignty politicians must first unite. I consider both our Házánk and Fidesz politicians to be pro-sovereignty politicians. We must consider whether pro-sovereignty politicians can think together and work together in the future.”
Lázár hit the headlines earlier, when on the hustings he suggested that there was no need for a single migrant because ‘the Gypsy population’ was Hungary’s internal labour reserve when it came to “cleaning someone else’s shit-stained toilet.” As election day draws near in Hungary, many Roma rights activists have taken to social media to warn voters not to succumb to blandishments, bribes or threats from the regime and its agents, for when it comes to racist contempt for Romani citizens, it is clear that Fidesz and Mi Hazánk are in lockstep.
