Hungary election live, Fidesz supermajority again – Latest news, UPDATE

Today is the general election and the child protection referendum in Hungary. PM Orbán believes that voters have to decide whether to enter the Ukrainian war or stay out of it. Meanwhile, the joint opposition says Hungary should decide whether to belong to the East or the West.

Please click for the latest news here: 2022 Hungarian parliamentary election

Jobbik leader blames Márky-Zay for defeat

Prime ministerial candidate of the united opposition Péter Márki-Zay is responsible for the defeat of the opposition, Jobbik leader Péter Jakab said, reacting to the outcome of Sunday’s general election in which Fidesz won a fourth successive supermajority. Read also HERE.

This is Gyurcsány’s opinion on the election defeat

Read here the reaction of Ferenc Gyurcsány, leader of the opposition Democratic Coalition, to Sunday’s parliamentary election results, in which Fidesz won a supermajority for the fourth time in a row. Details HERE.

PM Orbán wins fourth successive term with landslide victory!

Hungary’s Fidesz-led alliance, which has held office for the past twelve years, won a fourth successive term in Sunday’s election amid a high turnout of 69.49 percent, and was on course to win 135 seats in the 199-seat parliament, keeping its two-thirds majority, while United for Hungary, a coalition of opposition parties which had harboured high hopes of unseating Viktor Orbán’s government by joining together, fell well short of a mandate to govern. Read details HERE.

Projected share of parliament seats with 81.29 pc of votes counted

Hungary’s Fidesz-led alliance, which has held office for the past twelve years, appears set for a two-thirds majority in Hungary’s 199-seat parliament with 81.29 percent of the votes counted. Projected share of party parliamentary seats according to National Election Office data:

1. FIDESZ-KDNP: individual constituencies: 88, national list: 47, total: 135, share of parliamentary seats: 67.84 percent.

2. UNITED OPPOSITION: individual constituencies: 18, national list: 39, total: 57, share of parliamentary seats: 28.64 percent.

3. MI HAZÁNK: individual constituencies: 0, national list: 7, total: 7, share of parliamentary seats: 3.52 percent.

Opposition PM candidate Péter Márki-Zay concedes victory to Fidesz

Péter Márki-Zay, the prime ministerial candidate of the united opposition, on Sunday evening conceded victory in the general election to Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party. “I am stunned just like everyone else,” Márki-Zay said at the City Park Ice Rink in Budapest. “I don’t want to hide my disappointment and my sadness; we would never have thought that this would be the outcome.”

Márki-Zay said the conditions in the election were “extremely unequal”, adding, however, that the opposition was not disputing the result, “only that it was a democratic and free race”.

Salvini first to hail Orbán win

Matteo Salvini, the leader of Italy’s League party, congratulated Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on his election win in a Facebook post late on Sunday.

“Bravo Viktor! Alone against everyone, attacked by the fanatics of uniform thinking, threatened by those wanting to eradicate the Judeo-Christian roots of Europe, slandered by those wanting to eliminate values such as the family, security, merit, development, solidarity and freedomŁ; you won again thanks to what everyone else is lacking: the people’s love and support. Go Viktor, and respect to the free Hungarian people,” Salvini said. The League party said Salvini also sent a personal letter to Orbán.

Orban declares ‘huge victory’

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán declared a “huge victory” for the Fidesz-Christian Democrat alliance on Sunday after Hungary’s electorate returned Fidesz to power for another four years. “We’ve secured a huge victory, so big in fact that you can see it from the Moon, and certainly from Brussels,” Orbán said at the Balna Centre on the Pest side of the River Danube, the site where Fidesz awaited the results.

“We’re looking pretty good; we’re looking better and better, perhaps we’ve never looked as good as we’re looking tonight,” he said. Orbán also reassured ethnic Hungarians in western Ukraine’s Transcarpathia region that the motherland was “with them”, telling them to “hang in there” and not to be afraid.

Results after 57.64 pc of votes counted

Latest poll says Orbán will win 122 to 77

Medián, a Hungarian pollster, shared today evening the results of its latest poll. According to them, Fidesz will have 122 mandates (61.3 pc), and the joint opposition will get 77. Fidesz will get 49 pc on its national list, while the joint opposition only 41 pc. Moreover, neither Mi Hazánk (Our Homeland), nor the Magyar Kétfarkú Kutya Párt (Two-Tailed Dog Party) will reach the 5 pc threshold (4.5%, 4.5%) – portfolio.hu reported.

According to MTI, if Medián is right, the leftist Democratic Coalition will win 21 seats, conservative Jobbik 16, the liberal Momentum Movement 15, the Socialists 12, the small liberal Párbeszéd party 8 and green LMP 5 seats.

PM chief of staff: High turnout ‘win for democracy’

Turnout in the 2022 general election is expected to be a whisker below the level of four years ago, the prime minister’s chief of staff has said, adding the high turnout was “a win for democracy”. Speaking after voting officially ended on Sunday, Gergely Gulyás said Hungarian democracy was always robust whenever the “civic-Christian Democrat-centre-right government” held office. The high turnout, he added, gave the new parliament a strong mandate.

Most polling stations have already closed, he said, and the rest were expected to finish processing voting soon after. Gulyás thanked all voters who participated in the election, regardless of their party preference, and the “tens of thousands” of election volunteers. Some 100,000 pro-government activists worked in the past days to mobilise as many voters as possible, he said.

He also thanked the opposition for its proposal to organise the referendum on child protection on the same day as the general election. Regarding the results, Gulyás said the forecasts “give us cause for optimism, but we will only announce the results once every single vote is counted,” he said. Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén thanked Hungarians living beyond the borders for their “faithfulness to the nation”, adding that many more participated in the ballot than four years ago.

Election office expects to start publishing results after 9 pm

Gerrymandering?

24.hu published today a map showing that a vote in the Fidesz dominated country constituencies counts much less than a vote in the capital or in the municipals. For example, in Tolna county, 60 thousand citizens elect one MP. Meanwhile, that number is almost 100,000 in the constituencies around Budapest.

Voting officially ends (7 pm GMT)

Here is the badge first voters receive

Turnout  (at 6:30 pm GMT)

By 6.30 pm on Sunday, 67.8 percent of Hungary’s voters, 5,216,424 people, had cast their ballots in the general election, the National Election Office (NVI) said. Turnout at 6.30 pm was highest (72.49pc) in Vas County, in western Hungary, and lowest (62.19pc) in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén, in the north. Turnout in Budapest was 72.35 percent. Turnout at 6.30 pm in the last general election four years ago was 68.13 percent.

By 6.30 pm on Sunday, 67.06 percent of Hungary’s voters, 5,159,496 people, had cast their ballots in the referendum concerning Hungary’s child-protection law, the National Election Office (NVI) said.
Turnout at 6.30 pm was highest (71.62pc) in Vas County, in western Hungary, and lowest (61.35pc) in Borsod-Abauj-Zemplen, in the north. Turnout in Budapest was 71.75 percent.

Strong sentences from leading politicians

PM Viktor Orbán: 

“War and peace are at stake in the election“

Joint opposition PM candidate Péter Márki-Zay:

“Each vote counts because a single vote can decide a single election district and a single election district can, therefore, decide the outcome of today’s ballot“

Deputy PM Zsolt Semjén

“Hungarian weapons must not be sent from Hungary and Hungarian soldiers must not fight in this war.“

Budapest mayor Gergely Karácsony: 

the vote would decide

“whether Hungary is on the right or wrong side of history“.

PM chief of staff Gergely Gulyás

“in Europe, in Germany for example, they want to allow boys or girls as young as 14 to make a decision on gender reassignment….We must firmly reject that and this is the moment to say so.“

Klára Dobrev, former PM Ferenc Gyurcsány’s wife

“we will win and he [Péter Márki-Zay] will be prime minister“

What is happening today?

Today is the general elections in Hungary. Six parties of the opposition from former radical Jobbik to left-liberal Democratic Coalition united to defeat PM Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz and the Christian Democrats. Interestingly, the leftist-liberal coalition is led by a conservative politician, Péter Márki-Zay, who won the opposition primary last autumn and is proud of his Christianity.

Of course, there are further competitors. Our Homeland (Mi Hazánk) targets radical, patriotic and vaccine-sceptic voters. Meanwhile, the Magyar Kétfarkú Kutya Párt (Two-Tailed Dog Party), a satirical government-critical party, wants to stand with those, who are fed up with the current political structure. Moreover, there is porn billionaire’s György Gattyán’s Megoldás Mozgalom (Solution Movement), and György Gődény’s virus sceptic Normális Élet Pártja (Normal Life Party).

Furthermore, today is the so-called child protection referendum in Hungary with the following four questions:

• Do you support holding educational events on sexual orientation for minors, in public education institutions without parental consent?
• Do you support the promotion of gender-reassignment treatments for minors?
• Do you support the unrestricted exposure of minors to sexually explicit media content, that may influence their development?
• Do you support showing minors media content on gender-changing procedures?