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Budapest - With Hungary's conservative prime minister enjoying solid support and his opposition in disarray, Hungarians who united against his plan to tax the internet believe they have created a new platform to voice dissent.
The biggest street protests since he came to power four years ago forced Orban last week to shelve the tax plan - a stunning U-turn by a man whose big parliamentary majority and popular support usually allow him to wield power unopposed.
The loose collective of students, activists and artists who organised last month's protests believe they have tapped into a groundswell of an indignation that could now be channelled against other Orban policies.
"This is a colourful group but it is together and it wants to keep going," said Balazs Gulyas, a 28-year-old student activist who organised the protests via a Facebook page. "We are in the process of finding the way to do this right."
Orban, who declared in July that he wanted to make Hungary an "illiberal state", citing his admiration of the political systems of China and Russia, is viewed with concern by the rest of the EU and by the US.
Massive attendance
But despite taking a tighter grip over the media and pushing hundreds of judges into retirement - steps criticised in Brussels and Washington as authoritarian - the political opposition has been deserted by voters.
That has left a political void that the protest movement - which gathered on Gulyas's Facebook page "One Hundred Thousand against the internet tax" - hopes to fill.
"For now there is no movement, there is no organised political resistance," said Marton Gulyas, 28, an alternative theatre company director who joined the protests.
But, said Gulyas, who is not related to Balazs: "The chance for one is in the air."
After at least 50 000 people attended the tax rallies, and 240 000 joined the Facebook page, the government has not been able to ignore the movement, but it has accused it of being merely a front for the flailing Socialist opposition.
"When political will turns against the government then that is not civil society," government spokesperson, Zoltan Kovacs said.
"Hiding behind civil society groups gives a special colour to the Hungarian opposition. If they cannot get anywhere with parties they use civil society groups."
"Election time is the time for political decisions, and voters in Hungary made their will very clear."
The Socialists welcomed the tax protest and embraced its main message. But that sympathy was not mutual: most protest speakers and participants made clear that their disdain was aimed at the entire political elite, not just the ruling party.
"They have a right to reject us," said Socialist chair Jozsef Tobias.
"We still think they organised in a legitimate way and they showed that in a society there must be consequences when the people raise their voices against totalitarian attempts."
