The 2026 Hungarian election campaign has been marked by a dual phenomenon: a wave of content produced by artificial intelligence (AI) and a locally contentious speech in Kalocsa that drew national attention.
By 2026 — a little over three years after the emergence of ChatGPT — part of the public perceives image-, video- and music-generating AI tools as producing cheap, soulless mass content that mocks human creativity. Others continue to use these tools for entertainment, deception, manipulation or simple efficiency gains. During the campaign, AI-produced materials frequently pushed boundaries and, commentators say, created significant cognitive dissonance among audiences.
Campaign-era AI examples included manipulated footage and images of politicians: sensational claims that the LGBTIQ community was "infecting" children; images of bleeding or dead Hungarian soldiers; numerous surreal portrayals of Magyar Péter — for instance, cutting through a border fence, looking at himself in a hand mirror at Budapest Ferenc Liszt Airport, depicted as a Ken doll, waving a Pride flag with Dobrev Klára, boating in a plastic tub with Volodymyr Zelensky, talking on the phone with Ursula von der Leyen, or at a house party eating someone else’s cake. An AI-generated Fidesz campaign song surfaced from materials associated with Vadhajtások and was shown by Orbán Viktor in a notorious car video; critics described its mulatós-techno backing and lyrics as actively off-putting.
These phenomena underscored how technology can be used to manipulate, intimidate or simply surrealize campaign communication — often without clarity about who or what produced the content.
The Kalocsa speech: Judák Zsolt’s gaffe and its aftermath
In May, a Kalocsa stop on a tour associated with Tisza saw an incident that attracted significant attention. Traditionally, Magyar Péter delivered a brief energizing speech and then introduced the local candidate to maintain the crowd’s momentum. At the Kalocsa event, however, local candidate Judák Zsolt performed a surprising routine: he sang a song praising Tisza’s success, stated that Fidesz voters did not need persuading, and then — according to reports — uttered remarks about “vérfideszesek” (literally “blood-Fidesz-ers”), Orbán Viktor and “a little whore girl” who would be taken to Szőlő Street, language that provoked outrage.
Magyar Péter protested on stage against the use of the term “vérfideszes” and pointed out that candidate speeches are often not reviewed in advance, though he suggested they perhaps should be. Following the incident, Judák Zsolt issued an apology: “We don’t have professional politicians, but ordinary people. I am one of them, a gardener. We make mistakes and will make mistakes. Today I made a mistake too.”
Despite the controversy, the incident did not sink Judák’s electoral prospects locally: in April he defeated the Fidesz candidate Font Sándor by nearly five thousand votes.
Why this matters
The proliferation of AI-manufactured, manipulated campaign materials alongside local political gaffes demonstrates that the 2026 campaign is affected by both technological and human failures. The rapid spread of AI content raises questions about credibility, transparency in political communication and the need for regulation. At the same time, local missteps like the Kalocsa speech highlight the importance of vetting candidates and the responsibility of campaign teams in shaping public remarks.
Both AI-driven extreme or distorted content and individual campaign errors can influence voter perception — whether through AI-generated scare pieces or through local politicians’ slip-ups. As the 2026 vote approaches, these issues are likely to prompt further public debate and calls for measures to address them.
