Its origins lay in the illegal democratic opposition under the communist rule of János Kádár. This gave rise to the loosely organized Network of Free Initiatives on 1 May 1988 and to the foundation of the SZDSZ as an opposition political party on 13 November 1988. Its founding leaders included János Kis, Márton Tardos, Gáspár Miklós Tamás, and Miklós Haraszti. The party initially suggested a radical agenda for changing the political, social and economic system in the country. It suffered a close defeat at the first free general elections of the Third Republic in 1990, thus becoming the leading opposition force in the first free National Assembly. After the fall of the Hungarian Democratic Forum conservative government at the following 1994 parliamentary election, SZDSZ surprised many by entering into a coalition with the Hungarian Socialist Party, legal successors to the communist Hungarian Socialist Workers Party. Thus began a strategic alliance between the two parties that lasted for 14 years, ending only in 2008. The coalition successfully defeated Orban's Fidesz in 1994, 2002 and 2006. The heyday of the SZDSZ may be thought to have ended when it suffered heavy losses in the 1998 parliamentary election. In 2002 parliamentary election, it gained only 5.5 percent of the vote, returning 20 deputies to the National Assembly. Until its withdrawal from the coalition in May 2008, the SZDSZ had three portfolios. It also had a delegation in the European Parliament, receiving 7.7 percent of the Hungarian vote and two members in the 2004 Hungarian European Parliament election. In the 2006 parliamentary election, it gained no directly elected seats, but 6.5 percent of the list votes, thus securing 20 members in Hungary's 386-seat National Assembly. The MSZP–SZDSZ coalition had a small majority in the new National Assembly. On 31 March 2008, various reform-related disagreements between the MSZP and SZDSZ led the SZDSZ leader János Kóka to announce that his party would quit the coalition by 1 May 2008. This also meant that the MSZP would have to form the first minority government in Hungary since the change of system. However, the legitimacy of Kóka's position as party president became questioned when it was discovered that some signatures of the delegates to the assembly electing him had been forged. Since he had won his position by a very small margin over Fodor, these votes might have changed the outcome. So a new leadership election was held in June and Fodor was returned. SZDSZ provided the first freely elected President of the Third Hungarian Republic, Árpád Göncz. The SZDSZ High Mayor of Budapest, Gábor Demszky was in office continuously since 1990 till 2010, when he was replaced by István Tarlós. In the 2009 Hungarian European Parliament election, SZDSZ was essentially destroyed by the voters, having won no seats and earning just 2.16 percent of the total votes, less than half of the minimum five percent needed to secure representation. The party did not even receive five percent in Budapest, its traditional stronghold. Party president Fodor offered his resignation as soon as the official tally was announced at 10:00 p.m. In the 2010 parliamentary election, SZDSZ won only 0.25 percent of the vote and was shut out of the legislature altogether for the first time since the change of system. The party was even wiped off the map in Budapest. Alliance of Free Democrats officially ceased to exist in October 2013.
