With Hungary's parliamentary elections still five months away, the country is gearing up for a heated political battle as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán faces an unprecedented challenge from his opponent, Péter Magyar.

A former insider in Orbán's party, Magyar has gained traction with grassroots campaigning and promises of reform.

Orbán, who has led Hungary for the last 16 years, is seeing declining support due to poor economic performance and inflation while portraying Magyar as a threat to Hungary's stability.

"We mourn the past twenty years, the twenty years that have been wasted, the enormous opportunities that have been missed, which could have been used to build a functioning, European, civil, cheerful, and humane country,” Magyar said while addressing thousands in the western Hungarian city of Győr on Saturday.

Orbán was elected for a first term in 1998 and then for four additional terms beginning in 2010.

Beloved by his supporters but accused by his critics of corruption and anti-democratic, authoritarian tactics, he has overseen the construction of a political system in which his far-right Fidesz party has exercised nearly unchecked power.

"The category: free but not fair has been applied to Hungarian elections for the last couple of times” András Bíró-Nagy, director of the Budapest-based Policy Solutions think tank said referring to an earlier report of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

The report found a "pervasive overlap between ruling coalition and government messaging and activities,” as well as biased news coverage which limited voters’ opportunity to make an informed choice.

"There is no level playing field in the Hungarian elections," Bíró-Nagy said.

Magyar himself acknowledges that his Tisza party has fewer resources at its disposal with which to campaign and compared the contest as a "David and Goliath” struggle.

The Tisza party has sought to gain support from traditionally opposition liberal and centrist voters, but has also reached out to disaffected Fidesz supporters and voters with more conservative views.

Magyar says his party does not define itself along ideological fault lines, but pragmatically describes people’s well-being, introducing anti-corruption measures, and welcoming everyone in his new political community.

He compared the success of his new party’s grassroots campaigning to how amateur players could confuse a professional NBA basketball team "because they move completely differently."

Magyar’s near-constant campaigning in rural Hungary and his attention to bread-and-butter issues like the cost of living and poor condition of public services - have clearly contributed to his success in small towns, which have traditionally gravitated toward Orbán’s nationalist conservative message.

On Thursday, Magyar visited Tab, a community of fewer than 4,000 people in central Hungary.

The campaign stop was one of dozens he plans across the country on a tour he calls "Road to Victory.”

Hundreds of local residents filled the town’s socialist-era community centre and listened to Magyar speak for nearly two hours.

As Erika Bognár, a 76-year-old widowed retiree, walked into the event, she declared angrily that her monthly pension was too low to survive on, and that she wanted "a system change, because this system sucks.”

Many Hungarians are dissatisfied with the state of the country's economy.

The European Union has frozen some 14 billion euros (16.2 billion US dollars) in funding to Hungary over rule-of-law and corruption concerns, a deficit that has exacerbated chronically stagnant economic performance.

Orbán’s government has sought to mitigate the economic pain by introducing price caps on many products, and to woo voters with pre-election government spending like low-interest loans for first-time home buyers and the abolition of income tax for mothers with at least two children.

As the elections approach and Magyar's popularity remains strong, Orbán has sought to portray his opponent as an existential danger to Hungary who would bankrupt the country and drag it into the war in neighbouring Ukraine.

Magyar has denied such allegations.

Orbán, unlike nearly every other EU leader, has refused to supply Ukraine with economic aid or weapons to assist in its defence against Russia's full-scale invasion, and has cast as warmongers those countries that do support Kyiv.

He has also portrayed the EU, of which Hungary is a member, as an oppressive force, and compared the bloc to the Soviet Union, which dominated Hungary for decades in the 20th century.

Orbán's message is amplified by a sprawling pro-government media empire that has dominated Hungary's political discourse for more than a decade, as well as taxpayer-funded government communication campaigns that malign Magyar and promote Orbán's policies.

While touring the country, Magyar believes that more and more people are interested in his campaign events.

Most polls show Magyar and his Tisza party with a solid lead over Orbán's Fidesz - a feat nearly unprecedented for any opposition force in the last two decades.

With five months until the ballot and Tisza party leading in the polls, Magyar said he senses a desire for change in the towns and villages he continues to visit on his campaign tour.