The Fidesz – Hungarian Civic Union (in Hungarian: Fidesz – Magyar Polgári Szövetség) is a large conservative centre-right political party in Hungary; as of 2004 the most important one in the opposition.
It was founded in 1988, named simply Fidesz (Fiatal Demokraták Szövetsége, Alliance of Young Democrats), originally as a youthful libertarian party against communism. In the mid-1990s it realigned its political position into a conservative line where it is now, adding "Hungarian Civic Party" (Magyar Polgári Párt) to its shortened name. It took its present name in 2003, "Fidesz – Hungarian Civic Union".
It has 164 members of the Hungarian National Assembly, out of a total of 386. It was the most successful party in the 2004 European Parliamentary Elections, gaining 47.4% of the vote and electing 12 MEPs including Lívia Járóka, the first Roma MEP.
Prime Minister Gyula Horn congratulates the CivicParty on its victory(In Hungarian)
After the political changes in Hungary, the Association became a liberal political party; it then renamed itself the HungarianCivicParty and moved slightly to the right of the political spectrum.
Minimum change is expected in foreign policy in the hands of the HungarianCivicParty although analysts believe there could be a slight toughening in the country's negotiating position in talks to join the European Union.
These were the parties that put together programmes for changing the political and economic system in the political struggles at the end of the communist period in 1987 and 1988.
The Hungarian Democratic Forum was the first to build up a national organization and to collect together elements of the dissatisfied intelligentsia in the provinces; to a large extent it was able to rely on the mood and demands which emerged during the dramatically rapid changes of 1988-90.
As the party of Hungarian Christian Democracy, it would have liked to continue where István Barankovics was forced to leave off in 1949, but after the passage of forty years this proved difficult.
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