After more than a decade and a half in Hungarian politics, Viktor Szigetvári is leaving the political arena and potentially even Hungary. He gave a self-reflective, candid and elegant interview on ATV in the days after the election. It was devoid of any political spin. Mr. Szigetvári launched his career not as a front-line politician, but as a political strategist. […]
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 […]
On Monday we learned that Gábor Fodor’s Hungarian Liberal Party will support the Hungarian Socialist Party and Párbeszéd in elections to be held 8 April 2018. While it is highly unlikely that the tiny Liberal Party’s logo would appear on the ballot alongside those of MSZP and Párbeszéd (doing so would require the joint list to pass a 15% threshold […]
Perhaps nothing sums up the state of the rule of law in Hungary better than the Hungarian State Audit Office’s (ÁSZ) selective enforcement of regulation aimed at penalizing opposition parties (and likely driving one of them into bankruptcy), whilst dismissing the same rules when it comes to the ruling Fidesz party. The head of the State Audit Office is none […]
There is no doubt that Jobbik, once a party of the far-right, now appears to be a more palatable choice for moderate conservatives than Fidesz, which today occupies the extreme right in both its rhetoric and policy. Whether the rejection of the far right represents a genuine change of heart on the part of Jobbik or merely a cynical move […]
Viktor Orbán’s main concern in April 2018 may not be whether or not he wins a two-thirds majority in parliament, but rather if he can avoid the bad optics of having a veritable one party legislature after next year’s national elections. Medián, one of Hungary’s most prominent polling firms, has Fidesz at 61% support among decided voters–up four percentage points […]
If Tárki’s most recent polling numbers are accurate, the question ahead of the April 2018 elections is whether Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s ruling Fidesz party gains two-thirds of the seats in parliament or three-fourths. With Fidesz support now pegged at 59% in the Tárki poll–representing a 20% increase over the last two years–and in light of single constituency ridings that […]
Forty percent of Hungarians believe that there is a realistic chance at booting the ruling Fidesz party from power in the spring 2018 elections, while 37% believe that there is no chance of this whatsoever–this, according to a new poll released by Závecz Research. The poll also found that 43% of respondents would prefer a new government next year, while […]
A proposed referendum aimed at making it easier to prosecute politicians guilty of corruption managed to pass the muster of Hungary’s National Election Commission, even though the group’s Fidesz delegate fiercely opposed the anti-corruption initiative. Yet just when it seemed that Hungarian voters would have a chance to vote on the proposal to increase the time limit to prosecute corrupt […]
Some of the smaller “new left”-style parties are planning a joint, mass protest for August 20th, Hungary’s national holiday, in support of investigative journalists who will become official targets of the Orbán government’s vitriol in the coming months. The small Együtt party is spearheading the demonstration along Budapest’s Szabad Sajtó (Free Press) boulevard, with support from Zugló Mayor Gergely Karácsony […]
