INSIGHT
APRIL 2014
Hungary’s Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán (pictured left) has won another term in office as his centre-right Fidesz party celebrated a landslide victory. The vote, the first to take place under radically revised election rules, saw Fidesz take two thirds of the seats in Hungary’s parliament, which would allow the party to continue constitutional reforms without other parties’ support. A Socialist-led ‘Unity’ alliance came a poor second, winning 38 seats in comparison to Fidesz’s 133. ‘Politics Can Be Different’, a green/liberal movement, won five seats. However, the far-right Jobbik party took 23 seats - more than ten per cent of all the seats in parliament - and will look with confidence to the European Parliament election in less than seven weeks’ time.
Photo: CC/Flickr European People’s Party - EPP
These were the first parliamentary elections to be held under the country's new constitution and electoral rules, introduced by Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party in 2011. For the first time since Hungary’s transition to democracy, the election had a single round and voters elected 199 MPs instead of 386 lawmakers. 93 seats were distributed on party lists, with the remainder on a constituency basis, one of the aims being to ensure a majority government - something that has strongly favoured Fidesz in this election. Another innovation was that, for the first time, citizens abroad (notably in the diaspora in neighbouring countries) had the right to vote. Fidesz managed to push through the reforms due in part to a divided opposition. The opposition Socialists (MSZP) split, as did the green/liberal ‘Politics Can Be Different’ (LMP), which lost half its parliamentary group to Dialogue for Hungary (PM). MSZP and PM formed the Unity coalition to fight these elections, but always trailed in the polls to Fidesz.
Viktor Orbán highlighted his record in government and appealed to voters not to return to the past. His appeal was put in stark terms: “We know very
well that today there are two paths ahead of us, we must choose between two options, two ideologies and two forces. The future or the past. It's very simple: building the future, or a restoration of post-communism." Hungarians backed Mr Orbán’s path, giving it 44.5% of the vote and 133 of the 199 seats in parliament. Unity finished a distant second, its warnings that Mr Orbán was taking Hungary back even further in history, to the autocratic inter-war years, falling on deaf ears. Unity won 38 seats on 26.0% of the vote. The far-right opposition party Jobbik (meaning ’The Better Ones’) won 23 seats and the backing of one in five voters. Jobbik, which has been accused of anti-Semitism, pitched a law-and-order message that included criticism of Roma. LMP took the remaining five seats with 5.3% of the vote, while less than four per cent of votes went to other parties.
Viktor Orbán has claimed a clear mandate for further constitutional and economic reform. However, his party lost 700,000 votes (a drop of eight percentage points) and his plan for government was not stated clearly in the campaign amid the anti-Socialist rhetoric. In Brussels, Orbán divides opinion, and concerns remain about concentrations of power and media pluralism in Hungary, as well as the
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Fidesz - Hungarian Civic Union
133 (-130) 44.5%
Unity
38 (-21)
26.0%
Jobbik - Movement for a Better Hungary
23 (-24)
20.5%
Politics Can Be Different (LMP)
5 (-11)
5.26%
Others
0 (-1)
3.7%
* Size of parliament reduced from 386 to 199 seats
country’s economy, despite the claims of Fidesz that Hungary is performing well. The party was, however, visibly backed by European People’s Party leaders including the EPP President, Joseph Daul, and Orbán’s sometimes abrasive manner will continue to be tolerated. Now, attention turns to the European Parliament election, where Fidesz’s candidates - and those of Jobbik, too are expected to perform well. Original text by Chapter 4, BursonMarsteller’s exclusive affiliate in Central and South Eastern Europe, with David O’Leary, Burson-Marsteller Brussels. chapter4.at / bmbrussels.eu