Péter Magyar mobilized another massive rally

Opinions diverge on both the size of the crowd cheering the new opposition star on Saturday and his chances to bring about a regime change.

In Magyar Nemzet, László Szentesi Zöldi dismisses Magyar’s claim that his rally was attended by hundreds of thousands of people as pure fantasy. He claims the crowd didn’t even fully fill the square in front of the Parliament building, nor the adjacent streets, unlike past pro-government ‘peace marches’. He puts the number of people attending Saturday’s rally at 50 thousand and suggests that supporters of the government gather to show what a crowd of several hundred thousand really looks like.

On 24.hu, Zsolt Kerner puts the number of participants at about 100 thousand, adding that according to international studies, protest marches should mobilize at least 3.5 percent of the population to produce a political shock (that is three and a half times the size of the crowd last Saturday). He also remarks Magyar has drawn more and more people to his three consecutive rallies so far, and in order to attract at least as many as on last Saturday to the next one on 6 May, he will have to name the new party he will lead at the European elections in June (Magyar told the crowd on Saturday that he would do so ‘in due course’).

Tags: demonstrations, Peace Walk, Péter Magyar