Big election surprise, Fidesz stronger than ever, political analysts all badly missed the boat

HUNGARY - In Brief 03 Apr 2022 by Istvan Racz

---

The parliamentary election took place on Sunday, April 3, with a relatively high 68% participation rate. With close to 84% of the vote counted, Fidesz appears to have acquired 135 out of the total 199 parliamentary seats, two seats more than what they have had so far. This represents 67.8%, meaning the continuation of their existing constitutional majority in parliament. The united opposition has acquired only 56 seats or 28.1%. Fidesz' positions will be improved further by the radical right-wing Mi Hazánk party's passing the 5% parliamentary threshold and getting hold of 7 parliamentary mandates, and the local German ethnic minority's acquisition of the remaining one seat in the house. The latter two are supposed to operate as Fidesz' natural allies. This means Fidesz will be stronger in parliament than ever before.Curiously, there seems to be a very sharp division between the vote of Budapest and the rest of the country. In Budapest, 16 out of the total 18 constituencies have been won by the opposition alliance. However, the latter has won only two districts out of the total 88 outside Budapest. The vote on party lists shows a similar division between the capital city and the rest of the country. So the overall election result essentially means that Budapest has lost against the rest of the country.Political analysts have all got it badly wrong. The widespread expectation, including ours, was that Fidesz would win the vote but lose its constitutional majority for the next four years. It looks like Fidesz anti-war demagogy worked well, as we always suspected, but it worked even better than we thought. The contribution of Fidesz' overwhelming dominance in the media, an...