Gábor Vona

During his university years Gábor Vona actively participated in the student organization of the Alliance of Christian Intellectuals and was a member of the students' council of his university. Besides founding JOBBIK (acronym for Association of Right-Wing Youth; a youth movement that became the predecessor of Jobbik party) he became a member of Fidesz and the civic circle of Viktor Orbán. With his expectations about Fidesz led to disappointment, in 2003 Gábor Vona re-established Jobbik as a political party and became its deputy chairman; he was then elected as party leader in 2006.[4]

In 2007, Vona had founded the paramilitary group Hungarian Guard, which was outlawed in 2009.[5]

In 2009 Vona repeatedly called for a change of government and for Hungary's ruling politicians to be "held to account",[6] referring to among others, Ferenc Gyurcsány and Gordon Bajnai. He considers himself an "EU realist" arguing that the EU should take a new direction in which the role of the nations should have more weight.[7] Vona argues that the national police should be greatly strengthened and supports introducing an American style "three strikes law".[8]

He was the Jobbik's candidate for the position of Prime Minister of Hungary in the 2010[9] and 2014[10] Hungarian parliamentary elections. Jobbik won the seats for the first time in 2010, with Fidesz won the Supermajority.

After the elections, the party's congress elected him to be leader of the Jobbik parliamentary group. Vona became a member of the parliamentarian Committee of Agriculture, and its sub-committees, the Sub-Committee of Viticulture and Winery and the Sub-Committee of Renewal Resources.

Before the 2014 parliamentary elections Vona proclaimed a new political trend, the so-called néppártosodás (English: moderation to a people's party) in Jobbik. Vona, as the president of the party, introduced a new style of communication while stating that Jobbik has grown out of its "adolescence" and reached its adulthood. Since then Vona has been defining his party as a national people's party that significantly changed its views on the European Union, while in the internal politics the party started to be more open for the different groups of the Hungarian society.[11][12]

Vona states that his personal political views do not matter anymore. Jobbik should not focus on ideological issues. Instead, they should make efforts to eliminate the social tensions and controversies as well as to fight against corruption that can be found in the public life and administration.[13]

Vona withdrew from party politics after the failure 2018 parliamentary election. He became a YouTube vlogger and established a political think-tank, the Second Reform Era Foundation (Hungarian: Második Reformkor Alapítvány), dedicated to the preservation of Hungary's traditions. On 29 October 2019, Gábor Vona announced, he has quit from Jobbik.[14]