Ungarn elected a new parliament on Sunday. The first unofficial figures from the non-governmental institute Median, which are based on post-election polls, confirmed the trend of the last polls before the elections in Hungary: According to them, Fidesz received 49 percent of the list votes and the united opposition 41 percent. Together with a rough estimate of the constituency results, this would result in 121 seats for Viktor Orbán’s party and 77 seats for the opposition, i.e. a clear government majority but not a two-thirds majority.
The polling stations have been closed since 7 p.m., the first results are expected around 9 p.m., with a reliable forecast of the final result around midnight. While turnout in the morning election was still subdued in wet and cold weather, during the course of the day it approached the relatively high turnout of 2018 (70 percent).
Free governance should no longer be possible
The 199 members of parliament in Budapest were elected. The polls before the election pointed to renewed success for Prime Minister Orbán’s national-conservative Fidesz party, who has governed since 2010. But success for the united opposition is also within the realm of possibility.
Unlike in the past three terms of office, Orbán is likely to lose the parliamentary two-thirds majority that, thanks to a strong majority factor in electoral law, has enabled him to rule freely, including constitutional amendments. This time, the six strongest opposition parties have formed an electoral alliance in order to have only one opposition candidate opposite the Fidesz candidate in each of the 106 constituencies.
The joint opposition candidate Peter Marki-Zay with his family voting in Budapest on Sunday
:
Image: dpa
The parties, whose political spectrum extends from far right to left liberal and socialist, are also running with a common list for the remaining 93 mandates. Your top candidate is the originally non-party Péter Márki-Zay, a conservative Catholic, mayor of the southern Hungarian provincial town of Hódmezövásárhely.
“Orbán has become a disgrace in Europe”
The election campaign had recently come to a head over the issue of the Ukraine war. Orbán accuses the opposition of drawing the country into the war by supplying arms and even deploying Hungarian soldiers. The opposition, on the other hand, portrays Orbán as a covert 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 has lost NATO support, without which Hungary cannot be protected.
This issue has eclipsed another that the government had linked to the general election: the issue of the public portrayal of homosexuality and gender reassignment. The government majority passed a law last year that forbids such depictions in schools, the media or advertising to be made accessible to minors.