Fidesz has lost Budapest and half of major cities yesterday

HUNGARY - In Brief 13 Oct 2019 by Istvan Racz

---

The five-yearly local government elections were held yesterday. Fidesz did clearly worse than expected. Although they won an impressive 63% of all seats in the 19 municipality councils outside Budapest, they got only 19 mayoral positions in the 47 major cities, including the position of the Budapest mayor and also the mayoral seats of the 23 districts of Budapest. So far, they have held 38 of these mayoral positions, so yesterday's result indicates a significant shift in the political preferences of urban population. E.g. the united opposition won the seat of the Budapest mayor with 50.6% result, again 44.3% collected by Fidesz' candidate, who had been the city's mayor for the last nine years. The population of major cities represents 3.7 million people i.e. 38% of the country's total. This result was surprising, as national polls have been unable to grab the shift of political support in cities properly. Recent polls have actually reflected a moderate shift in favour of Fidesz at the national level. Fidesz are unlikely to question the results: PM Orbán has acknowledged their partial defeat in a brief speech after the results have become known. Preliminary results of local government elections on October 13, 2019Source: Nemzeti Választási Iroda (www.valasztas.hu)The results of the local elections will in no way question the distribution of political power at the national level. Fidesz will continue to command an impressive constitutional majority in parliament, and the next major vote, a parliamentary election, is scheduled for the spring months of 2022 only. However, the results appear to be a game changer in the sense that they provide the opposition with an importan...