Will life improve for Hungary's Roma community under Magyar?

It was one of the most emotional moments of the transfer of power in Hungary: On May 9, just as the new National Assembly convened for its inaugural session, a group of children in white shirts entered the plenary hall of the magnificent neo-Gothic parliament building in the Hungarian capital Budapest . They played tamburas and guitars, and sang "Cigany Himnusz," the unofficial anthem of the Roma in Hungary. The opening lines go "zold az erdo, zold a hegy is" or "green is the forest, green is the hill."

It brought tears to the eyes of many of the members of parliament as well as to the tens of thousands who gathered outside parliament. Aladar Horvath, one of Hungary's best-known Roma civil rights activists and one of the country's first Roma members of parliament after the end of the communist dictatorship in 1990, was also there. "I too was moved to tears," he said. "It was as if we were finally coming home."

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The performance was the fulfilment of a promise that Hungary's new prime minister, Peter Magyar, had made in November 2025 when he met the children, members of a tambura ensemble SUGO Tamburazenekar, in the village of Sukosd in southern Hungary. He vowed he would invite them to play in the Hungarian parliament if his Tisza party won the elections.

And this was not the only symbolic gesture on this historic day. As the new members of parliament left the building, the Roma singer Ibolya Olah took the stage on the steps and sang the patriotic song "Magyarorszag." For years, nationalists did not want her to sing the song, which begins with the lines: "There's a country where I walked in my dream: Hungary." After her performance, Magyar hugged the singer.

Hungary's new prime minister has an extraordinary knack for symbolic politics , and May 9 marked a historic moment for the Roma community not only in Hungary but across Europe. Never before in European history had members of this minority been so demonstratively included in the transition of power. It was particularly poignant given the fact that Viktor Orban's authoritarian regime, which came to an end after 16 years, was so deeply anti-Roma.

The Tisza parliamentary group now includes four Roma lawmakers. One of them, Krisztian Koszegi — a teacher and director of a vocational school — is the first Roma person in Hungarian history to be elected deputy speaker of the Hungarian National Assembly.

Magyar has repeatedly spoken out strongly against antiziganism. He also condemned the parliamentary faction of the far-right Mi Hazank Mozgalom (Our Homeland Movement) for walking out demonstratively as the Roma children performed. "Shame on you!" he told the lawmakers, saying that it was unacceptable to turn one's back on children because of their origins.