Hungary elected a new parliament on Sunday. The first unofficial figures from the non-governmental institute Median, based on post-election polls, confirmed the trend of the latest polls before the Hungarian elections: according to them, Fidesz received 49% of the votes on the list and the united opposition 41%. Together with a rough estimate of the election results, this would result in 121 seats for Viktor Orbán’s party and 77 seats for the opposition, ie a clear majority in the government but not a two-thirds majority.
Polling stations are closed from 7 pm, the first results are expected around 9 pm, with a reliable prediction of the final result around midnight. While turnout in the morning elections was still moderate in wet and cold weather, during the daytime it approached the relatively high turnout of 2018 (70%).
Free governance should no longer be possible
The 199 members of parliament in Budapest were elected. Polls ahead of the election pointed to renewed success for Prime Minister Orbán’s national conservative Fidesz party, which has ruled since 2010. But success for the united opposition is also within the realm of possibility.
Unlike the last three terms, Orbán is likely to lose the two-thirds parliamentary majority that, thanks to a strong majority factor in electoral law, allowed him to govern freely, including constitutional amendments. This time, the six strongest opposition parties formed an electoral alliance to have only one opposition candidate opposite the Fidesz candidate in each of the 106 constituencies.
Opposition candidate Peter Marki-Zay with his family voting on Sunday in Budapest: Photo: dpa
The parties, whose political spectrum stretches from the extreme right to the liberal and socialist left, also compete with a common list for the remaining 93 terms. Its leading candidate is the originally non-partisan Péter Márki-Zay, a conservative Catholic, mayor of the provincial town of Hódmezövásárhely in southern Hungary.
“Orbán has become a disgrace in Europe”
The election campaign had recently come to a head due to the issue of the war in Ukraine. Orbán accuses the opposition of dragging the country into war by providing weapons and even mobilizing Hungarian soldiers. The opposition, on the other hand, portrays Orbán as a secret ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Orbán said at the end of the campaign: “We are able to defend Hungary’s peace and guarantee Hungary’s security. But the left will drag us into this war.” Márki-Zay said Orbán “has become a disgrace in Europe”. He lost the support of NATO, without which Hungary cannot be protected.
This issue eclipsed another that the government had linked to the general elections: the issue of public representation of homosexuality and gender change. The government majority passed a law last year that prohibits such depictions in schools, media or advertising from being accessible to minors.