I get where you're coming from, because Hungary was a Communist state until 1989, but ex-MKP (Hungarian Communist Party) cadre joined Fidesz as well as MSZP.

Like any other non-Western European and North American country, politics in the CEE is very much about those networks and connections you cultivated - not really ideological - and almost everyone mid-high level in Hungarian politics today started their careers in the 1990s.

Politics in much of the CEE amongst that generation appears much more mercenary than ideological.

Anecdotally, I've heard the biggest reason my Hungarian coworkers parents voted for Fidesz was largely because of the cash benefits they would provide before elections - same as Bolsa Familia in Brazil, TOKİ in Turkiye, and Freebies in India (all illiberal democracies have a similar form of patronage politics, this is a very incomplete list)

I meant Gyurcsány and the tapes.

The tapes didn't contain lies, but the harsh truth. Gyurcsány addressed the lack of performance of his government.

The public didn't want to hear that and gave supermajority to Orbán for the next decade and a half.