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Opposition devastated
Opposition parties suffered a major blow in the elections, winning only 15 of the 106 individual districts, most of them in Budapest.
They had previously been emboldened by the win of an independent candidate in a mayoral by-election in a Fidesz
Jobbik party leader Gabor Vona announced his resignation after the results came out, as the party failed to run a tight race with Fidesz and only managed to keep its base. On Sunday night, the head of the Socialist party also said he will quit. Analysts expect the blame game to start on the opposi- tion landscape. LMP has already been
immigrants live. Government propagan- da said opposition parties would open up empty barracks and vacant homes to house migrants.
Uneven playing field
Some 8mn people were eligible to vote in Sunday’s election in addition to the sev- eral hundred thousand votes by Hungar- ian nationals with no address in Hungary, who in previous elections overwhelm- ingly supported the conservative party.
Fidesz transformed the election laws before the 2014 election, reducing the number of seats in the one-chamber legislature from 386, replacing a two- round with a one-round system and redrawing the electoral maps in a way that favoured the incumbent.
The rules were also changed to allow non-Hungarian residents with Hungar- ian citizenship to vote. Ethnic Hungar- ians living in neighbouring countries could send their vote to a local constitu- ency election office or to the National Election Office by April 7, while Hun- garians working abroad could only cast their votes at foreign missions.
Voters who registered themselves else- where than their home addresses queued in front of polling stations in Budapest for hours after the polls officially closed at 7pm. This delayed the posting of results by the National Election Committee (NVI) for several hours. The NVI's website was not available for hours during the day and the website of the Socialist party came under attack by hackers.
“The win gives Orban's party 133 seats in the 199 seat legislature, a two-thirds majority by
a single vote.”
stronghold in February, but they failed to reach a compromise on withdrawing their candidates in favour of the stron- gest rivals to Fidesz and running on a joint list, the only viable chance for them to unseat Fidesz MPs under the current election system.
After talks of wider cooperation between them failed, they pinned their hopes on a high turnout, as the polls showed the vast majority of the 1mn undecided voters favouring a change of government, but this hope proved to be unfounded.
The opposition parties failed to come up with a clear economic vision but more importantly, they failed to respond to the aggressive Fidesz campaign, and their message of widespread corruption in Hungary did not get through to vot- ers, analysts said.
Right-wing Jobbik won 19.5% of the popular vote but got only 27 seats due to the structure of the election system. Despite leaving its racist and anti-EU rhetoric behind, the party managed to win just a single new district.
The largest leftist opposition alliance, the Socialist-Dialogue, will have 20 seats in parliament after receiving 12.3% of the votes. Green opposition party LMP received 6.9% of the votes. Democratic Coalition (DK), headed by former prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsany, will be the fifth party to enter the parliament with 5.6% of the votes.
blamed for not withdrawing its candi- dates in Budapest, which gave Fidesz six mandates.
Nasty campaign
The campaign was one of the nastiest ever as Fidesz has narrowed down its campaign message to the single issue of immigration, painting an apocalyptic view of the country if it accepted even a few thousand migrants. The government has spent hundreds of billions of forints on ads and billboards in the last couple of years.
Orban played successfully on the fears of Hungarians, especially those in rural areas, where people have few if any contacts with foreigners.
Orban said that at stake in the election is Hungary's sheer existence, and claimed the country would lose its identity if can-
“The opposition parties failed to come up with a clear economic vision”
didates from opposition parties – whom he termed “Soros candidates” – won the election. They would turn Hungary into a “migrant country”, he said.
State-owned media, a mouthpiece for the government, ran stories of crimes committed by Muslims, and pointed to the situation in Western European coun- tries, where a large number of Muslim
Delegates of opposition parties reported several cases of election fraud, such as the mass mobilisation of voters to poll- ing stations in rural areas. In poor areas Fidesz MPs handed out food and drink, and in one village the local Roma popu- lation were threatened by the mayor of the village that they would lose their public work status if they didn’t vote for the ruling party.
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