The MDF was the largest party on Hungary's emergence as a democratic country under the leadership of József Antall, Prime Minister between 1990 and 1993.

They stood in the ideological tradition of the népi-nemzeti ("populist-" or "rural-national") movement, which has been opposed to the urbánus ("urbanist") school of thought since the end of the 19th century.

The Forum focused on national and cultural traditions, aimed at radically democratic grassroots politics and a "third way" between capitalism and communism.

The MSzMP had transformed into the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSzP) in October 1989 and Imre Pozsgay was considered a strong contender in direct presidential elections.

Free Democrats and Fidesz, on the other hand, wanted to prevent a directly elected, Socialist president at any rate and therefore called for a referendum, that was held in November 1989.

With Antall's taking over from founding president Zoltán Bíró, the MDF shifted gradually away from the népi-nemzeti principles in their pure form.

Antall represented a broadly national-liberal or liberal-conservative tendency, opening the party for a wider political spectrum and social base, especially the national-minded and Christian middle class.

The Antall government carried important reforms through that completed Hungary's transition from communist rule, e.g. laws on local administration, the status of civil servants and redemption of the old regime's wrongs.

Still, traditional and religious values and national ideas played a greater role in the MDF's rhetorics than in its conservative and Christian democratic counterparts in Western European countries.

Its proponents called for a systematic "cleansing" of public positions from former communists, demanded the sacking of supposedly "un-national" responsibles at TV and radio stations, and also attacked the liberal SzDSz, which they viewed as "cosmopolitan", "liberal-bolshevik" and "Jewish" and therefore incompatible with the ordinary Hungarians' mindset.

The 1994 poll brought a devastating defeat for the MDF which dropped to 12.0% of the votes and 38 seats, putting it on a distant third place behind the resurged Socialists and the liberal SzDSz.

While in opposition, internal quarrels continued and intensified between conservatives, like Boross and Sándor Lezsák, and centrists around Iván Szabó.

In 2008, the presidential election turned into a scandal, where Ibolya Dávid said that people associated with UD Ltd. had attempted to interfere with internal affairs of her party, and released secretly recorded telephone conversations as evidence.

[23] With MP András Csáky's quit, the Hungarian Democratic Forum's parliamentary group defunct according to the house rules in March 2009.

[25] On the national election, MDF came to the fifth place and received only 2.67% of the votes, thus shut out of the legislature altogether for the first time since the transition to democracy, after twenty years.

[27] The party's congress approved the change of name in March 2011, as a result Democratic Community of Welfare and Freedom (JESZ) was formed officially on 8 April 2011.