France, April 11 -- "What Orban says are lies," says Georg Goya, a former soldier who now works as a plumber. "He claims that if we vote for Magyar, Hungary will be drawn into the war in Ukraine. That's complete nonsense."

Goya wa speaking at a rally for Peter Magyar in the town of Sulysap, just outside Budapest. The opposition leader drew a vocal crowd, which cheers him on. This was Friday, 10 April - two days before the election.

Viktor Orban has been in power since 2010. Over that time, he has reshaped both his politics and the country, moving it from a fledgling post-communist democracy towards what many critics describe as a quasi-authoritarian system - one he himself has labelled an "illiberal democracy".

In elections over t...