Five days before the 8th April vote, opposition parties are struggling to unite in swing ridings, and key politicians are contradicting each other. According to reports published in Index on Tuesday afternoon, the Hungarian Socialist Party – Párbeszéd alliance (MSZP-P) decided to withdraw its candidate in Central Budapest in favour of Antal Csárdi of the Politics Can Be Different party […]
On Easter Monday, six days before national elections, András Fekete-Győr of Momentum announced that he was withdrawing his candidacy in Central Budapest in favour of Márta Naszályi of the Hungarian Socialist Party – Párbeszéd alliance (MSZP-P)–the strongest opposition candidate. Mr. Fekete-Győr followed in the footsteps of Péter Juhász of Együtt, who withdrew last week. Central Budapest, known in Hungarian as […]
This past weekend, Péter Juhász of the Együtt party did the right thing: he withdrew his candidacy in Central Budapest (the Belváros) in favour of the Hungarian Socialist Party – Párbeszéd candidate, Márta Naszályi (Mrs. Várady). This electoral district, like nearly each in Budapest, could be won by left-centre parties if the local Fidesz candidate faces a single left-centre or […]
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s decision to use his speech on a Hungarian national holiday to explicitly threaten legal and political revenge against his opponents has opposition politicians, journalists, academics and civil liberties activists wondering if the election on 8 April is, indeed, a “do or die” situation. The most recent Medián poll, released this week, shows that Fidesz is set […]
In the April national elections, the voting ballot given to citizens to select a party list may be the size of a tablecloth. Forty parties claim to have successfully nominated at least 27 candidates in constituencies spread across a minimum of nine counties and Budapest to be able to field a party list in April. One hopes that the National […]
The international alt-right, which has come to view Viktor Orbán as a beacon of hope, will be sorely disappointed this morning. According to the conservative Magyar Nemzet daily, Fidesz party headquarters issued a directive to all government politicians expressly prohibiting them from posting negative commentary about George Soros on social media. Viktor Orbán’s decision to end a two-and-a-half year long […]
János Lázár, the Minister of the Prime Minister’s Office, tried to find a silver lining in the 16-point landslide defeat that the ruling Fidesz party suffered on home turf–in the solidly conservative town of Hódmezővásárhely. Before congratulating the united opposition’s candidate, Péter Máki-Zay, Mr. Lázár kept repeating that Fidesz had not lost any votes in this elections. With 9,468 votes […]
A new Závecz Research poll shows that Fidesz support is down by one percent, while the number of Hungarians who would like a change in government rose by three percent, from 40% to 43%, based on polling data gathered in February. It’s worth noting that this was the last poll conducted prior to the official launch of the election campaign. […]
The most diligent political parties and candidates were all doing the same thing this morning: picking up their nomination forms, so as not to waste any time gathering at least 500 valid signatures in the country’s 106 single-member electoral districts by 5 March. This first hurdle is meant to separate the wheat from the chaff. The stakes are high for […]
Hungary has gone through two national election campaigns (2010 and 2014), in which Prime Minister Viktor Orbán refused to engage his opponents in televised debates. Ever since performing poorly against then Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány in the 2006 election debate (an election that Mr. Orbán lost to the Hungarian Socialist Party – Alliance of Free Democrats coalition), Mr. Orbán has avoided […]
