Hungary does not change: Viktor Orban wins again.
With more than 20 percent of the vote, the outgoing prime minister has a clear advantage, with the coalition of the ruling party Fidesz and the Christian Democrats of the KDNP with 134 seats out of a total of 199 and the opposition having a narrow advantage 57 in one of the most important elections in history In the country where Prime Minister Orbán ran for the fourth time in a row, the turnout was 67.8%, slightly below the level of four years ago.
The prime minister, who had gone to vote early that morning with his wife Aniko Levai at a school on the outskirts of Budapest, had predicted a “great victory”, but a certain nervousness permeated the words delivered to the press. For the first time, Orbán felt shadowed by an opposition presenting itself in a single coalition, United for Hungary.
An electoral cartel that brought together six parties of different political leanings led by Peter MarkiZay. Everyone is united by the goal of ending the season of “illiberal democracy that Orbán opened.
Support for the opposition also came from Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who on Saturday evening again addressed Orbán, “the only one in Europe who openly supports Putin”. “I’m not afraid to call the war by its name attacked the Ukrainian leader that’s called honesty, something Viktor Orbán lacks, maybe he lost it somewhere in his relations with Moscow.”
But Zelenskyy’s insult, adding to that leveled during the European summit, may have proved counterproductive. Progovernment propaganda spread fears among voters that the opposition would drag Hungary into the war by allowing arms shipments to Ukraine.
Marian, retired, says she voted for MarkiZay but hoping that “she won’t declare war on Russia, the situation she says is dangerous and I remember the Russian tanks in Budapest”.
There is also a shadow of voting cheating. The Hungarian Civil Rights Union has reported irregularities. In Hortobagy, a town in eastern Hungary, the local government organized and advertised buses to get people to vote, according to activists. “The local electoral commission has declared that this is illegal, but our activists the NGO claims have identified a bus transporting them”.
These allegations come on top of suspicions reported in recent days by several journalists who found burned ballot papers in Romania, in a region inhabited by the Hungarian minority. It is no coincidence that the OSCE for the first time in an EU country sent 200 observers to monitor the correct conduct of the vote. Which promises to be more controversial than ever.
On the triumph of proRussian Vucic in Serbia
An announced triumph. It is that of Aleksanadr Vucic in Serbia, where the first parliamentarians, presidential elections and administrative elections were held in 14 municipalities, including the capital Belgrade.
A vote that, in all likelihood, should secure a second term for the Serbian head of state in the first round. And even his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS, conservative) should have no trouble winning both the parliamentary and administrative elections by a wide margin. Today’s consultation, meanwhile, was marked by a strong recovery in voter turnout, which is expected to be around 60%, around 10 points higher than the last legislatures of June 2020.
‘Peace. Stability. Vucic’: That was the outgoing president’s campaign slogan, which took place in the shadow of the war in Ukraine and with the ups and downs of the weakened but not yet eradicated pandemic. A campaign whose initially dominant themes were the fight against corruption and crime, strengthening democratic rights and protecting the environment, issues that remained on the sidelines, overwhelmed by the looming war and Serbia’s stance on the armed conflict in Ukraine not far away .
And the new tensions that have arisen with the Russian armed intervention, along with fears of possible spread of instability and threats to the Balkans as well, have given Vucic’s campaign further motivation and impetus, which add to the great economic and modernization results of the A Country, which has been preserved by its administration for the last decade, it has positioned itself as the only true political leader capable of keeping the bar straight and peace and stability not only for Serbia but for the whole guarantee region.
However, the war has put Serbia, and Vucic in primis, in an awkward position visàvis the European Union, with which accession negotiations are ongoing. While condemning violations of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, Belgrade refuses to abide by international sanctions against Moscow and invokes Serbia’s national interests, most notably the supply of energy at discounted prices and assistance in the thorny issue of the Kosovo. “The main thing for the future is to preserve peace and stability and to ensure the continuation of economic progress,” said Vucic at the polling station, whose selfconfident and muscular politics have increasingly taken on nationalpopulist tones. Today’s parliamentary elections were attended by opposition forces who boycotted the last parliamentary elections in June 2020.
And her appearance appears to have helped mobilize the electorate, with turnout that has risen significantly since the last election. In any case, the new parliament will no longer be as monochromatic as the one that emerged two years ago with over 60% and 188 of the 250 seats won by the Vucic SNS.
Kosovo Serbs today had to reach four locations in southern Serbia to vote after the Pristina authorities firmly refused to organize elections for a “foreign country” on Kosovo’s territory, despite pressure from the EU and the international community . This position is considered unacceptable by Belgrade, which does not recognize the independence of Kosovo, which is still considered an integral part of Serbia. Today’s vote was monitored by observer groups from the OSCE, the Council of Europe and the European Parliament. Irregularities and incidents of various kinds, although not of major importance, were reported in some polling stations across the country.