The Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) and Jobbik both had their respective rendez-vous with destiny on Sunday night. At the same time, former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány’s Democratic Coalition (DK) and the fledgling Momentum party, both underestimated in opinion polls, caused much surprise by their strong showing in European Parliament elections in Hungary. The results were as follows, with turn-out at […]
Jobbik is right where Fidesz want it to be: effectively bankrupt, with almost no paid staff and with the insurgent far right movement of László Toroczkai siphoning away parts of the party base. This week RTL discovered that Jobbik has only 604,000 forints (circa C$3000) remaining in its bank account and has just three paid full-time employees. The party will […]
The Hungarian opposition’s implosion continues. On Tuesday, László Toroczkai, the leading radical in Jobbik, announced that he was launching a new platform within Jobbik called “Mi Magunk” (or “We Ourselves,” a clear nod to Northern Ireland’s Sinn Fein), in order to give radicals within the party a voice. There was speculation that people like Mr. Toroczkai, Előd Novák and his […]
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 […]
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. […]
According to a Medián poll released Wednesday, Fidesz has seen its support drop by 7 percent among decided voters. As the campaign ahead of national elections on 8th April heats up, the poll shows that more Hungarians are planning on exercising their vote–going from 52% in early 2017 to 56% at the end of January 2018. Historically, higher turn-out tends […]
This morning, a friend from Budapest sent me a digital copy of a print newspaper entitled Lokál, distributed free of charge at metro stations, train stations, public places in Hungary and also delivered to private homes. Lokál was established in 2015 by Árpád Habony, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s strategic adviser, and the print daily has a national circulation of 1.16 million […]
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 […]
