Our Homeland Movement (
Hungarian: ''Mi Hazánk Mozgalom'', '','' Mi Hazánk, MHM, MH) is a Hungarian
far-right political party. It was founded by
Ásotthalom mayor and former
Jobbik Vice-President,
László Toroczkai, along with other Jobbik dissidents who left the organization after the party's leadership moved away from its radical beginnings. The party ran in the 2019 European Parliament elections for the first time, but it did not win a seat. However, in the
2022 parliamentary election, it became the third largest
party in the country with a result of nearly 6%, far surpassing public opinion polls. In the 2024 European Parliament elections, the party continued to increase its support, reaching nearly 7%.
History
On April 8, 2018, after the lost elections, the president of Jobbik, Gábor Vona, resigned, true to his promise, and therefore a reform congress was announced in the party. László Toroczkai was the first to indicate his intention to run for the position of president, which was followed by the presidential application of Tamás Sneider, nominated by the acting presidency. Almost half of the congress delegates (46%) voted for the pair of László Toroczkai (president) and Dóra Dúra (deputy president). László Toroczkai announced that he is forming a platform within the party called Mi Magunk. The presidency announced that it will not accept Toroczkai's platform because it considers it against the constitution, although there is no such decision in the constitution. Proceedings were initiated against Toroczkai and Dóra Dúró, Dóra Dúró was expelled from the faction, and Toroczkai from the party. After that,
Dóra Dúró and her husband
Előd Novák left the party, so the Mi Magunk platform became an independent movement. Due to the failure of the platform creation, the new movement under the name Mi Hazánk Mozgalom will raise its flag on June 23, 2018 in Ásottthalom. As a result of Toroczkai's expulsion and the proceedings against Dóra Dúró, many Jobbik members and grassroots organizations indicated their withdrawal from the party or their dissolution. Some of them joined the new movement.
On August 20, 2018, they announced their Founding Declaration at their celebratory event in Budapest's Városliget, and the next day, on August 21, 2018, Deputy President Dóra Dúró announced that the court registration of Mi Hazánk Mozgalom as a political party was legally binding.
In early 2019, the party made an alliance with the right-wing
Hungarian Justice and Life Party and the agrarian
Independent Smallholders, Agrarian Workers and Civic Party.
In
2019 local elections, the party won 8 seats in counties' assemblies.
In the
2022 parliamentary election, the party surpassed the 5% threshold to enter parliament, winning 6 seats and forming the second largest faction in the Hungarian Parliament.
In 2022, the party hosted representatives of
Alternative for Sweden (AfS),
Alternative for Germany
Alternative for Germany (, AfD, ) is a Far-right politics in Germany (1945–present), far-right,Far-right:
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* Right-wing populism, right-wing populist and National conservatism, national-conservative p ...
(AfD), the Dutch
Forum for Democracy (FvD) and the Bulgarian
Revival party at the Hungarian-Serbian border, describing them as "allies". Our Homeland Movement party leader
László Toroczkai, as well as AfD's Stefan Korte, both held individual speeches at AfS's election campaign meeting held in
Rålambshovsparken in Stockholm on 6 August 2022.
In August 2023, the party organized a joint "Declaration for a free Europe of Nations" with the AfS, FvD, Revival, the Czech Republic's
Freedom and Direct Democracy and the Swiss Mass-Voll party, with a view towards forming a future new group in the
European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is one of the two legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it ...
.
Ideology
Although the party identifies itself as "
third way
The Third Way is a predominantly centrist political position that attempts to reconcile centre-right and centre-left politics by advocating a varying synthesis of Right-wing economics, right-wing economic and Left-wing politics, left-wing so ...
", opposing the policies of both the left-wing opposition and the governing right-wing party
Fidesz, the mass-media has variously described Our Homeland Movement and its ideology as
nationalist
Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation,Anthony D. Smith, Smith, A ...
,
right-wing populist,
far-right,
radical right, extremist and even
neo-fascist. The party has
anti-immigration,
anti-Masonic and
pro-Russian views,
and it was also accused of having
anti-Islamic,
antiziganist,
antisemitic views. The party holds
national conservative,
traditionalist and
social conservative positions.
Economy
The party also positioned itself as
agrarianist.
According to the movement, Hungary should become economically independent, and to this end, the party would create hundreds of small and large
food processing plants in the country and announce a new
land distribution program. With the distribution of land, they would like to favor young Hungarians in particular. They would re-establish the Hangya Szövetkezet (''Ant Cooperative'')
that existed in Hungary in the first half of the 20th century, whose task was to ensure that farmers achieved a good position in the market, allowing their interests to prevail.
The movement holds
anti-communist views.
The party demands the disclosure of agent lists, the accountability of party state leaders – for example,
MSZMP leaders,
KISZ secretaries,
Workers' Militia and
ÁVH members – and their ban from public life, as well as the withdrawal of communist luxury pensions.
The party considers the
Antifa movement a terrorist organization. They support the demolition of statues containing
communist symbols, such as the Soviet Heroic Monument on
Liberty Square.
Corruption
To
curb corruption,
they would abolish immunity. They oppose joining the
European Public Prosecutor's Office, instead wishing to establish a Hungarian Anti-corruption Prosecutor's Office. The executive board of the organization would include prosecutors delegated by the government and the opposition, as well as non-parliamentary social organizations.
Diaspora
The party supports the autonomy of Hungarian communities abroad, for example, it supports the
Székely autonomy movement and it also supports
Hungarian Regional Autonomy. They would support education of the
Hungarian diaspora in the Hungarian language from kindergarten to university, as well as the use of
Hungarian national symbols.
The party wishes to establish the day of the signing of the
Second Vienna Award as a holiday, called the Day of Homecoming, to commemorate the territorial revisions recovered by regent
Miklós Horthy.
Social issues
The party strongly opposes
LGBT rights
Rights affecting lesbian, Gay men, gay, Bisexuality, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the Capital punishmen ...
. After the release of a children's book, ''Meseország mindenkié,'' which features LGBT members and ethnic minorities as characters, the Deputy President of the party,
Dóra Dúró, referred to the book as "homosexual propaganda" during a press conference, and promptly ripped pages out of the book and then shredded them. The move caused significant controversy and garnered international attention. The party has called for a ban on LGBT pride marches.
Environment
In an interview with ''
Mandiner'', party leader
László Toroczkai described MHM as "a unique green party in Europe", stating that "we are unwilling to accept that only anti-social and anti-human liberal parties can be green parties. We think that those who do not want to protect our environment, our forests, our beautiful
Great Plain,
Lake Balaton
Lake Balaton () is a freshwater rift lake in the Transdanubian region of Hungary. It is the List of largest lakes of Europe, largest lake in Central Europe, and one of the region's foremost tourist destinations. The Zala River provides the larges ...
, our rivers cannot really love their homeland". Thus, the party is sometimes referred to as supporting some form of
green conservatism.
Health
Amidst the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...
, the party has protested lockdown measures set in place by the government, accusing them of "inciting panic" and ruining the country. The party also promotes
vaccine hesitancy, having launched a petition against the use of COVID-vaccines on children aged 12–15. In 2024, they called on the government to explore the possibility of banning
mRNA vaccines, which they say are "responsible for many health problems and deaths". Previously, several politicians of the party have falsely spread the claim that vaccines are "three times more deadly than the virus itself." They support withdrawal from the
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a list of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations which coordinates responses to international public health issues and emergencies. It is headquartered in Gen ...
(WHO).
Security
The party supports the reintroduction of the
death penalty
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in s ...
, and it also supports the reintroduction of
conscription
Conscription, also known as the draft in the United States and Israel, is the practice in which the compulsory enlistment in a national service, mainly a military service, is enforced by law. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it conti ...
. They support the re-establishment of the Hungarian Border Guard, the development of the
Hungarian national defence and military industry. However, they oppose the participation of Hungarian soldiers in international missions.
Foreign policy
In
foreign policy
Foreign policy, also known as external policy, is the set of strategies and actions a State (polity), state employs in its interactions with other states, unions, and international entities. It encompasses a wide range of objectives, includ ...
, the party advocates closer ties with Turkey, the states of the
Persian Gulf
The Persian Gulf, sometimes called the Arabian Gulf, is a Mediterranean seas, mediterranean sea in West Asia. The body of water is an extension of the Arabian Sea and the larger Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.Un ...
, the
BRICS countries, and
Palestine
Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...
.
During the
Russian invasion of Ukraine
On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...
, the party referred to Ukraine as an "unfriendly country" and called on it to give up territory claimed by Russia "for the sake of peace".
They did not support sanctions against Russia and voted against Finland's and Sweden's
accession to
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...
. On 27 January 2024 Toroczkai said at a conference that the party would lay claim to a
Hungarian-populated region in western Ukraine if the war led to Ukraine losing its statehood.
The party advocates neutrality in the
Israel-Palestine conflict and criticises the
Fidesz government for its pro-Israel stance, with Our Homeland Movement calling for an immediate ceasefire and two-state solution, condemning the death of civilians on both sides, and describing the
Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip as a "massacre". The party later invited the Ambassador of South Africa to Hungary to present its claim of Israeli genocide in Gaza at an event held at the Turkish Embassy, and advocated for designating Israeli settlers in the West Bank as terrorists.
The movement would initiate a referendum on Hungary's withdrawal from the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...
. They believe that Western European multinational companies take more profits out of the country than money comes in from the EU.
They completely reject the
European Federalism. Instead, they prefer nationalist nation-states. As a result, Mi Hazánk has been described as
nationalist
Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation,Anthony D. Smith, Smith, A ...
, and
eurosceptic.
Education
In
education
Education is the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits. Formal education occurs within a structured institutional framework, such as public schools, following a curriculum. Non-formal education als ...
, their goal is to modernize the curriculum and reduce the amount of current curriculum. They believe that IT,
English and physical education should be given priority. In addition, they consider the nationalist education of young Hungarians and their education for family life to be important. They support the creation of Christian and nationalist children's movements, such as the
Levente Movement. In the summer of 2023, they started such camps in several settlements of the country. The party supports the
segregation of Hungarian and Roma pupils in educational institutions. However, according to the party's official position, students would be segregated based on their behavior rather than their nationality.
Organizational structure
Leaders
Membership
Paramilitary wing
In May 2019, it was announced the party would be forming the
National Legion, a uniformed "self-defense" group similar to
Magyar Gárda, the paramilitary wing of
Jobbik, which was banned in 2009.
The National Legion ceased to exist a year later, and its members merged into the Hungarian Self-Defense Movement, which operated independently of the party.
Electoral results
National Assembly
European Parliament
References
External links
Our Homeland website
{{Hungarian far right
Far-right political parties in Hungary
Nationalist parties in Hungary
Eurosceptic parties in Hungary
Anti-communist parties
Conservative parties in Hungary
Green conservative parties
Hungarian nationalism
Hungarian irredentism
National conservative parties
Neo-fascist parties
Organizations that oppose LGBTQ rights in Hungary
Right-wing populist parties
Russophilic parties
2018 establishments in Hungary
Anti-Islam political parties in Europe
Political parties established in 2018
Social conservative parties
Opposition to Viktor Orbán
Jobbik breakaway groups
Ultranationalist parties