Parliamentary elections were held in Hungary on 8 April 2018. The elections were the second since the adoption of a new constitution, which came into force on 1 January 2012.
The result was a victory for the Fidesz–KDNP alliance, preserving its two-thirds majority, with Viktor Orbán remaining Prime Minister. Orbán and Fidesz campaigned primarily on the issues of immigration and foreign meddling, and the election was seen as a victory for right-wing populism in Europe.
Background At the previous parliamentary election in April 2014, the incumbent government — composed of Fidesz and its satellite ally the KDNP — was able to achieve a two-thirds majority for the second consecutive time with 44.87 percent of the votes. According to their critics, this overwhelming proportion was only because of the new election law (mostly due to the introduction of compensation votes also for the individual winners) which was adopted by the ruling coalition in 2011. In early 2015, however, Fidesz lost its two-thirds majority following the 2014 Hungarian Internet tax protests and subsequent decrease in support for the government. The governing party suffered defeats at two parliamentary by-elections in February and April 2015, both in Veszprém County.
The left-wing electoral alliance Unity, which failed to win the 2014 national election after its five constituent parties gained a total of only 38 seats, broke up shortly thereafter. Its former member parties (MSZP, Együtt–PM and DK) participated in the May 2014 European Parliament election individually, while the MLP did not participate in the election at all. Due to this fragmentation of the left-wing opposition, the radical nationalist Jobbik became the second largest party in a nationwide election for the first time since its establishment. The PM broke off the permanent nature of its alliance with Együtt on 9 November 2014.
After a few months of crisis for Fidesz from November 2014, which was marked by internal conflicts (e.g. businessman Lajos Simicska's fall from grace within Fidesz) and corruption allegations, the governing party regained much of its lost support during the European migrant crisis during the summer of 2015, when Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced the construction of a , fence along its southern border with Serbia. The Hungarian government also criticised the official European Union policy for not dissuading migrants from entering Europe. The barrier became successful, as from 17 October 2015 onward, thousands of migrants were diverted daily to Slovenia instead.
On 13 December 2015, the 26th congress of the ruling Fidesz re-elected Viktor Orbán as party leader. Orbán said in his speech that he was ready to lead the party into the forthcoming parliamentary election and to continue to serve as prime minister if Fidesz won re-election in 2018. With that statement, Orbán made clear that he did not intend to become President of Hungary in succession to János Áder during the 2017 indirect presidential election.
On 2 October 2017, the elected leader of the MSZP, László Botka, announced his withdrawal, saying that he thought some of the Hungarian opposition did not care about changing government.
Orbán and Fidesz's strength going into the election came into question when the party unexpectedly lost a mayoral by-election in Hódmezővásárhely, considered a Fidesz stronghold, on 25 February 2018, to an independent candidate supported by every opposition party. Election observers and critics of Orbán speculated whether Hungary's opposition parties could create a similar alliance on the national level, though the opposition parties had been unable to create a common strategy by late March 2018. Orbán increased his efforts as a result of this loss.
According to observers prior to the election, winning re-election was seen as more difficult for Orbán than expected.
Electoral system
The 199 members of the National Assembly were elected by two methods; 106 were elected in single-member constituencies by first-past-the-post voting, with the remaining 93 elected from a single nationwide constituency mostly by proportional representation, via a partially compensatory system (a hybrid of parallel voting and the mixed single vote). The electoral threshold was set at 5%, although this was raised to 10% for coalitions of two parties and 15% for coalitions of three or more parties. Seats were allocated using the d'Hondt method.Electoral system IPU
Since 2014, each of the Armenian, Bulgarian, Croatian, German, Greek, Polish, Romani, Romanian, Rusyn, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, and Ukrainian ethnic minorities can win one of the 93 party lists seats if they register as a specific lists and reach a lowered quota of of the total of party list votes.Nemzeti Választási Iroda National Election Office Each minority is able to send a minority spokesman – without the rights of an MP – to the National Assembly, if the list does not reach this lowered quota.
Opinion polls
Candidates Individual candidates The following table contains a selected list of numbers of individual candidates by county representation and party affiliation:
Individual candidates CountySeats Fidesz–KDNP Jobbik LMP MM ÖP MIÉP MP MSZP–Párbeszéd DK MKKP Együtt Budapest1818181513171187123Baranya444433321232Bács-Kiskun666663234210Békés444444312211Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén777657764304Csongrád444432113132Fejér555535342301Győr-Moson-Sopron555545123221Hajdú-Bihar666664654213Heves333313102111Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok444444442211Komárom-Esztergom333321222130Nógrád222211121111Pest1212121195886456Somogy444423012202Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg666665633311Tolna333322111110Vas333333102110Veszprém444334012120Zala333331001201All1061061061008366575755433930
National lists Under the election law, parties which ran individual candidates in at least 27 constituencies in Budapest and at least nine counties had the opportunity to set up a national list. The following table contains only the incumbent parliamentary parties' national lists (first 20 members), which were able to secure mandates:
Party (national) lists Fidesz–KDNP (279) Jobbik (184) MSZP–Párbeszéd (220) LMP (128) DK (145)1. Viktor Orbán (Fidesz) 2. Zsolt Semjén (KDNP) 3. László Kövér (Fidesz) 4. Katalin Novák (Fidesz) 5. Mihály Varga (Fidesz) 6. Gergely Gulyás (Fidesz) 7. Gábor Kubatov (Fidesz) 8. Szilárd Németh (Fidesz) 9. Zoltán Balog (Fidesz) 10. Péter Harrach (KDNP) 11. Sándor Lezsák (Fidesz) 12. István Jakab (Fidesz) 13. Balázs Győrffy (Fidesz) 14. Béla Turi-Kovács (Fidesz) 15. Kristóf Szatmáry (Fidesz) 16. László Böröcz (Fidesz) 17. Flórián Farkas (Fidesz) 18. Márta Mátrai (Fidesz) 19. Zsolt Németh (Fidesz) 20. István Bajkai (Fidesz)1. Gábor Vona 2. János Volner 3. Dóra Dúró 4. Ádám Steinmetz 5. Andrea Varga-Damm 6. Dániel Z. Kárpát 7. Tamás Sneider 8. Ádám Mirkóczki 9. Erik Fülöp 10. Dávid Janiczak 11. Márton Gyöngyösi 12. Gergely Farkas 13. Gábor Staudt 14. György Szilágyi 15. Péter Jakab 16. Enikő Hegedűs 17. István Szávay 18. László Lukács 19. Balázs Ander 20. Tibor Bana1. Gergely Karácsony (P) 2. Gyula Molnár (MSZP) 3. István Hiller (MSZP) 4. Ágnes Kunhalmi (MSZP) 5. Bertalan Tóth (MSZP) 6. Zoltán Gőgös (MSZP) 7. József Tóbiás (MSZP) 8. Attila Mesterházy (MSZP) 9. Zsolt Molnár (MSZP) 10. Zita Gurmai (MSZP) 11. Bence Tordai (P) 12. Lajos Korózs (MSZP) 13. László Varga (MSZP) 14. Ildikó Bangó-Borbély (MSZP) 15. Anett Bősz (MSZP) 16. Tamás Harangozó (MSZP) 17. András Nemény (MSZP) 18. László Szakács (MSZP) 19. Márta V. Naszályi (MSZP) 20. Csaba Tóth (MSZP)1. Bernadett Szél 2. Ákos Hadházy 3. György Gémesi 4. Erzsébet Schmuck 5. Péter Ungár 6. László Lóránt Keresztes 7. Márta Demeter 8. Máté Kanász-Nagy 9. Szilvia Lengyel 10. Gábor Üveges 11. István Ferenczi 12. Krisztina Hohn 13. Júlia Ábrahám 14. Kálmán Kis-Szeniczey 15. Róbert Benedek Sallai 16. Virág Ecseki 17. István Ikotity 18. Antal Csárdi 19. Mária Hajdu 20. János Kendernay1. Ferenc Gyurcsány 2. Csaba Molnár 3. Ágnes Vadai 4. Péter Niedermüller 5. László Varju 6. Lajos Oláh 7. Sándor Székely 8. Zsolt Gréczy 9. Attila Ara-Kovács 10. Imre László 11. Gergely Arató 12. László Sebián-Petrovszki 13. Erzsébet Gy. Németh 14. Zoltán Varga 15. József Debreczeni 16. Judit Ráczné Földi 17. Tibor Nagy-Huszein 18. Erik Konczer 19. József Binszki 20. Zoltán Nagy
Campaign
The Breaking Point Poster (depicted a photograph of Syrian refugees near the Croatia-Slovenia border in 2015), that was used during the 2016 UK Brexit referendum, was used in an anti-immigration advertisement by the Hungarian Fidesz party, published on 26 March 2018, This poster added a large red stop sign graphic over the photograph.
In March 2018 just before the election, Fidesz János Lázár posted an anti immigration video about Vienna. On the video he said that migrants made Vienna dirty and poor and that in 20 years, Hungary's Budapest could look like Vienna if the Hungarian opposition won the elections.
A Fidesz party poster featured George Soros and rival candidates (Bernadett Szél, Ferenc Gyurcsány, Gábor Vona and Gergely Karácsony) holding bolt cutters after having cut the Hungarian border fence behind them.
Results + Turnout (within Hungary only, excluding eligible voters abroad) 7:00 9:00 11:00 13:00 15:00 17:00 18:30 Overall2.24% 13.17% 29.93% 42.32% 53.64% 63.21% 68.13% 70.22%
Party list results by county and in the diaspora
County Fidesz–KDNP Jobbik MSZP-Párbeszéd LMP DK Momentum Együtt Others Bács-Kiskun53.97 19.78 9.37 6.34 4.07 2.65 0.34 3.47 Baranya43.68 19.37 12.08 8.16 6.34 2.72 0.63 7.00 Békés48.01 23.58 11.28 5.98 4.67 2.37 0.42 3.70 Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén45.62 26.52 12.75 4.88 4.62 1.77 0.31 3.52 Budapest38.15 12.93 18.06 10.84 8.65 5.75 1.65 3.97 Csongrád45.54 19.68 15.21 7.82 4.11 3.25 0.62 3.75 Fejér49.10 21.78 10.02 6.63 5.49 3.03 0.45 3.48 Győr-Moson-Sopron54.18 17.43 9.65 7.19 4.68 3.06 0.37 3.42 Hajdú-Bihar51.23 21.30 10.73 6.11 4.25 2.70 0.48 3.19 Heves47.33 27.53 10.04 5.07 4.96 2.03 0.31 2.70 Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok48.49 26.39 10.55 5.07 4.23 1.96 0.32 2.97 Komárom-Esztergom44.52 23.02 11.31 7.31 6.45 2.66 0.39 4.31 Nógrád50.78 21.28 12.24 5.03 4.75 1.51 0.32 4.06 Pest46.21 19.09 11.32 8.92 5.80 3.55 0.80 4.28 Somogy49.92 23.61 10.37 5.28 5.49 2.12 0.43 2.80 Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg54.16 22.41 11.15 3.80 3.82 1.67 0.30 2.70 Tolna53.64 17.66 10.09 7.15 4.59 2.08 0.31 4.46 Vas57.77 15.02 11.14 6.31 3.93 2.48 0.38 2.98 Veszprém50.80 20.64 11.01 6.16 4.77 2.52 0.43 3.64 Zala52.45 20.76 9.89 6.29 5.20 2.48 0.36 2.58 Total in Hungary47.36 19.81 12.37 7.31 5.58 3.16 0.68 3.74 Diaspora96.24 0.91 0.55 0.93 0.30 0.45 0.14 0.49 Total49.27 19.06 11.91 7.06 5.38 3.06 0.66 3.61
Reactions Following his election defeat, Gábor Vona, chairman of Jobbik, tendered his resignation. The entire Socialist leadership also resigned.
Orbán was congratulated by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, European Council President Donald Tusk, British foreign minister Boris Johnson and Former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper. In addition, numerous hard-right and far-right European leaders, including Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders, Beatrix von Storch, Vice Chancellor of Austria Heinz-Christian Strache, Matteo Salvini, Alexander Gauland, Alice Weidel, and Nigel Farage, congratulated Orbán's election victory. German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer also reacted positively at the election results. U.S. President Donald Trump congratulated Orbán's election victory in a June 2018 phone conversation.
On 14 April 2018, "tens of thousands" of Hungarians protested Orbán's election victory in Budapest. According to Bloomberg News, the protests illustrated the divide in Hungarian society that existed despite Orbán's victory. Another large protest occurred the following week.
Analysis