BUDAPEST, Hungary — For weeks on end, tens of thousands of mostly young Hungarians have demonstrated in the streets of Budapest, in what is becoming a new political movement against Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Initially sparked by a draft bill on nonprofits and legislation that essentially would close down the Central European University in Budapest, the protests — which at their height drew as many as 80,000 people to the streets — have morphed into a broader movement demanding government accountability, a full return to democracy and a rollback of Russian influence in the country’s politics.

At the same time, Orbán’s popularity has taken a fall, tumbling from 49 to 40 percent between January and April, according to a study by polling firm Median. His Fidesz party has also lost ground, from 37 percent voter approval to 31 percent during that same time period.

“People lost trust in politics,” said András Fekete-Győr, the 28-year old leader of Momentum, an anti-Orbán group, adding that young people “are completely unsatisfied with their future prospects.”

Momentum first came to attention when it collected more than a quarter of a million signatures and successfully pressured the Orbán government to drop Hungary’s bid to host the 2024 Olympics, which, they argued, would merely open the door to corruption.

While most opposition parties have supported the protests, they remain deeply divided.

The group of mostly millennials plans to field candidates in the 2018 parliamentary election and Fekete-Győr will run as the leader of this new political party which has yet to articulate a policy platform beyond opposition to the current government.

Veteran politicians, meanwhile, emphasize that opposition forces need to work together.

“It is necessary to reach out to today's disillusioned … voters, which is only possible through the collaboration of the progressive forces,” said Péter Juhász, who heads the liberal Együtt (Together) opposition party. “I do believe Orbán can be replaced in 2018.”

But that may be easier said than done. While most opposition parties have supported the protests, they remain deeply divided. Of nine centrist, left-wing, and liberal-leaning opposition parties, five would fail to meet the minimum 4 percent threshold to get into parliament. And the largest opposition group in Hungary remains the far-right Jobbik party, which enjoys the support of 14 percent of the population and has been the main beneficiary of Orbán's declining popularity.

The prime minister, for his part, appears unruffled by the protests.

“It always makes one smile when one sees masses of people demonstrating because of a supposed lack of democracy," Orbán said in a radio interview last month. "They chant dreadful things and make serious, defamatory, libelous accusations — partly about the country and partly about its leaders – all the while claiming that there is no democracy. This is rather funny."

Echoes of the past

While “Russians go home” is now a slogan that can be heard regularly in the streets of central Budapest, bringing to mind the fall of Communism in 1989 and Hungary’s 1956 revolution, the young protesters are noticeably casting even further back into history.

“We will be slaves no longer!” a teenage girl yelled into a megaphone as she marched down Budapest’s elegant Andrássy boulevard on a recent evening as other young people around her repeated the lines from a poem dating back to Hungary’s 1848 revolution. A common refrain for singing demonstrators is a song about Lajos Kossuth, a tw0-centuries-old revolutionary.

For the protesters, the values of the 1848 revolution — and in particular Kossuth’s emphasis on democracy and freedom of the press — resonate.

“We need to save our democracy,” said a young woman as protesters around her shouted “Europe” and “Orbán go away.”

This new generation is entering Hungarian politics, motivated in part by opposition to the current regime — a pervasive feeling that "we've had enough," said activist Balázs Horváth Kertész as he sat in the Occupy Budapest tent in the city’s Oktogon intersection on a recent afternoon.

Oktogon, situated about halfway between Hungary’s riverside parliament and the city’s iconic Heroes’ Square, has become a symbolic place of resistance to the Orbán government. Young protesters have spent many nights sitting down on tram tracks and halting traffic, holding impromptu dance parties and spontaneous political speeches in the usually busy traffic intersection.

Activists pitched a tent in the square after protests began in early April as an information point and forum for discussion. Recently, workshops have been held there on civil disobedience with curious Budapest residents stopping by to chat about the political situation.

“The government is scared,” one young man, who declined to be identified, said as he stood among rows of riot police at a protest outside Hungary’s parliament.

Most of the young protesters see Orbán as a hypocrite — a man who fought for freedom and, during Hungary’s transition away from Communism, presented himself as a liberal democrat but who now disregards individuals’ rights and the rule of law.

“Was Orbán detained as well when he was protesting?” one young man holding a megaphone asked a police officer as he was being pulled aside for what police described as encouraging the crowd to march without a permit.

Fear of retribution

The protests are organized on social media, and the fact that most protesters are equipped with smartphones has helped activists disseminate the message about what they believe to be an increasingly repressive regime.

A Facebook live video of four plainclothes policemen tailing a young activist following a protest garnered over 90,000 views. And more than 300,000 people watched footage of two activists — charged with throwing paint outside the presidential palace — appearing in a courtroom in handcuffs while their lawyers argued that due process was violated. They were eventually found guilty of vandalizing a landmark building and sentenced to 300 and 200 hours of public work.

But some observers believe that the crowds would be even larger if Hungarians didn’t fear retribution.

“Some people are scared to come, scared to express their own opinions," said Patrik Kromer, a student activist who has gone to several anti-government protests recently. "They fear they will lose their jobs.”

“Some people are scared to come, scared to express their own opinions,. They fear they will lose their jobs" — student activist Patrik Kromer

Orbán’s critics became particularly worried about retribution against protesters — and Russia’s growing influence in Hungary — when a Chechen named Magomed Dasajev posted a video of himself sitting in a Budapest café with a young activist who "apologized" for throwing paint on a Soviet memorial as a protest. The activist later reported the Chechen had threatened him and his family.

Hungarian media later reported that a Russian embassy official in Budapest knew about the Chechen’s plan to pressure the activist to apologize.

“We were not aware of his plans,” a spokesman for the Russian Embassy told POLITICO, adding that the embassy has called on members of the Facebook group where Dasajev discussed the matter not to engage in unlawful activities.

The Hungarian government’s supporters have accused the American-Hungarian billionaire financier George Soros of funding and organizing the anti-government protests.

“The protests were devised by the agent organizations financed and managed by the businessman George Soros, because Fidesz submitted the law on the transparency of agent organizations supported from abroad,” Fidesz party vice-president and MP Szilárd Németh said in early April.

And media outlets close to the ruling party claimed last month that Soros was paying for protesters to fly in from abroad. Meanwhile, Fidesz-allied commentators repeatedly warned of a Ukraine-style revolution, with 888.hu, an online news site close to the ruling party, even referring to the dangers of a “Hungarian Maidan.”

Protesters have rejected these accusations, devising a new slogan — “we came on a plane!” — which they chant in Hungarian as a way of poking fun at what they see as the government’s increasingly conspiratorial tone.

Privileged protesters

Whether the protest movement can be successful in bringing change remains to be seen. It faces challenges due to its diffuse and disorganized nature, with various groups of volunteers and political parties staging different protests. Also, it has a limited presence beyond the capital, with people outside Budapest largely hearing about the protests from government-controlled media outlets. And the movement at times struggles to project itself as relevant to all Hungarians, and not just the privileged few.

During one late-night protest, a young man told the crowd that the police didn't understand the issues because they don’t have university degrees. He quickly apologized but the damage had clearly been done. After the protesters left, the riot police took off their helmets and gear, revealing young men not much older than the protesters. One upset policeman could be heard talking to his colleagues: “I had to work, I couldn’t study!”