Ankur Desai

Naya and her mother Gidemagi talking to Paul Henley.

Hungarians are going to the polls in a crucial parliamentary election on Sunday with veteran Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his Fidesz party facing a powerful challenge from the opposition Tisza party.

Nick Thorpe sent this report on an election expected to have an impact far beyond Hungary's borders.

A chill April evening in Somboté in the far west of Hungary.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is due at any moment and a crowd several thousand strong is impatient.

Many carry Hungarian red, white and green flags.

Miklós is the mayor of a nearby village.

In the election campaign, Viktor Orbán stresses one theme above all.

He stands for peace in neighbouring Ukraine, he says, while his rival, Peter Magyar, of the Tisza party, would drag Hungary into the war against Russia, with those he calls the warmongers in Brussels.

But in the crowd, mixed with the chants of his own supporters, were the chants of the opposition.

Filthy Fidesz, they shouted, a common refrain from those who accuse this government of feathering its own nest.

Viktor Orban is fighting for his political life.

I've come to Kishkun Lotshaaza, just south of Budapest, to see Peter Madjar address a Tissa party rally.

The crowd is younger.

The candidate is 17 years younger than Orban.

He speaks calmly to them while Orban bellows into the microphone.

And he preaches a message of unity, of an end to the division, the constant search for external and internal enemies of the Orban years.

Driving back to Budapest, I listen to the news on the state radio.

It begins with ten minutes devoted to the Fidesz message, with just one minute for the Tisza party.

The last weeks have been marked by many scandals.