Election 2018 – Poll: Ruling parties strongest in all age groups

The ruling alliance of Fidesz and the Christian Democrats is the strongest political force among all age groups and the only one to have substantially increased its base compared with 2014, according to a snap analysis of Hungary’s general election by the Nézőpont Institute released on Monday.

Though votes cast abroad and by those who voted outside their districts are still being counted, data currently available shows that the ruling alliance had more votes cast for their national list than the parliamentary opposition parties combined.

Altogether 2.5 million people in Hungary and 100,000 beyond the border cast their votes for Fidesz’s national list.

This means that the ruling parties received 256,000 more votes than the opposition parliamentary parties combined.

Breaking down the vote into age groups, Nézőpont said Fidesz won 38 percent of the youth (aged 18-29) vote, followed by radical nationalist Jobbik, which won 31 percent. But Fidesz won by even bigger margins in the other age groups. It captured 56 percent of the vote among 30-39-year-olds, 48 percent among 40-49-year-olds, 54 percent among those aged 50-59 and 45 percent among those over 60. The Socialist-Párbeszéd alliance and the Democratic Coalition (DK) did well among older voters, while Jobbik and opposition Momentum were more popular among young people, Nézőpont said.

The pollster also highlighted Fidesz’s popularity in Budapest.

In the capital, Fidesz captured 38.3 percent of the vote, 20 points more than the second-place Socialists-Párbeszéd. Jobbik came in third with 12.9 percent, followed by green LMP with 10.6 percent. Fidesz received 38.7 percent of the votes cast for individual candidates.

Nézőpont said the opposition’s defeat was not down to the electoral system. It dismissed the theory that a second round of voting and more effective coordination by the opposition parties would have improved their chances against the incumbent alliance. Nézőpont argued that the opposition had had the opportunity to coordinate “before the first round”, for instance, in the form of a pre-selection of their candidates. “Their failure to do this cannot be blamed on the ruling parties or the electoral system,” Nézőpont said.

The analysis also said that Fidesz and the Christian Democrats were the only players to have increased their base compared with four years ago.

Out of the votes cast in Hungary, 2.6 million were cast for Fidesz’s national list, compared with 2.1 million in 2014. Meanwhile, Jobbik’s tally remained virtually unchanged, with the party receiving just over 1 million votes in both elections. The “leftist-green spectrum” also performed similarly to how they did in 2014, Nézőpont said. On Sunday, the Socialist-Párbeszéd alliance, DK, Momentum, Együtt and LMP received just under 1.5 million votes, compared with the slightly more than 1.5 million votes cast in total for the left-wing alliance and LMP four years ago.

Nézőpont conducted its analysis as a phone poll on a sample of 750 people.

Featured image: MTI