Voting is underway in Hungary, where today’s parliamentary elections will determine whether Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party will get another four years in power. It’s seen as a bellwether for more than just the direction of Hungary: given Orbán’s authoritarian tendencies and efforts to weaken democratic institutions in the country, today’s results will likely be extrapolated to draw conclusions about the future of right-wing populism and democracy across Europe.

With this in mind, I spent five days in Budapest late last month talking to party members and political types about the election, trying to make sense of Hungary’s complicated party politics and political system.

For The Atlantic, I looked at how a late February mayoral race in Hódmezővásárhely gave Hungary’s fractured opposition hope that they could unite and actually defeat Orbán. As I learned, that’s far easier said than done—and the wide ideological range of the parties in question, let alone intra-party infighting and the new electoral law, mean this full-scale cooperation never materialized.

Given my interest in far-right parties across Europe, I also wrote about the explicit and long-term shift that the far-right Jobbik has undertaken since 2013. More than just trying to expel unsavory elements and appeal to a broader base, they now describe themselves as a centrist “people’s party.” Tonally, it’s clear they’ve changed—but what’s still unclear is how sincere they are under the surface. I wrote about Jobbik in English for Foreign Policy and auf Deutsch for Tagesspiegel.