In search of his fourth term in a row, the Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, runs this Sunday (3) in his toughest election. Internally, he is opposed by an unprecedentedly united opposition. Outside the country, the war in Ukraine has complicated its double-talk between Russia and the European Union, which exacerbates its isolation.
At the same time, 12 years in power have given the far-right populist a place of advantage that is difficult to achieve. Arrangements in the Constitution and in the electoral system, control of state and private media and a party machine embedded in the various levels of institutions made the dispute disfigured in democratic terms.
According to polls carried out throughout March, Orbán has a lead of two to three percentage points over the opposition, and about 15% of voters say they are undecided. The polls are unreliable in Hungary, but experts say they indicate the prime minister’s lead.
With nationalist, anti-immigration and anti-LGBTQIA+ discourse, Orbán, 58, has the support mostly of the older population living in rural areas, while the opposition does better in the metropolitan area of the capital, Budapest, and among young people. It is the fiercest election in Hungary since 2006.
“The race is not over, the turnout will decide the result and anything can still happen,” Orbán told a local website on Friday (1st).
Some 8.2 million voters go to the polls to choose 199 members of the single-chamber parliament. Of these, 106 are the direct winners of each district, and the remaining 93 are chosen from closed party lists in a proportional and compensatory system.
As a rule, not only do the least voted candidates receive redistributed votes, but also the winners in the districts get extra seats, which tends to favor the stronger acronyms. The case of Fidesz, created by Orbán in the late 1980s. In 2018, the party won 49% of the votes and took 133 seats (67% of Parliament) — the two-thirds needed to approve changes to the Constitution.
“The electoral system is so unique that it doesn’t take a coalition very far if it has more votes, but they are fragmented. You really have to group around a single candidate in each district to be able to convert a majority of votes into a majority of seats.” “, explains political scientist Gábor Tóka, a researcher at the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest.
Thus emerged the ticket United for Hungary, which brings together six parties, from left to right. Founded in December 2020, it is made up of Social Democrats, Liberals, Greens and Conservatives, who, through primaries, chose Péter Márki-Zay, 49, a conservative, non-partisan mayor of the interior, to be Orbán’s opponent.
“It’s an incredibly diverse alliance, but we’ve managed to overcome our differences internally without threatening our success,” he told sheet the mayor of Budapest, Gergely Karácsony, elected in 2019 on a single ticket against a Fidesz politician who had held the post for nine years.
A member of the Dialogue for Hungary (green), Karácsony ran in the primaries, but ended up withdrawing his name in support of Márki-Zay. “Under normal circumstances, I would be an opponent of him, as he is a free-market conservative and I am a left-wing liberal. But I’m optimistic — he speaks not only to the traditional opposition but also to conservatives unhappy with the government.” .”
One of the campaign’s slogans is the fight against corruption practiced by Orbán, who has become rich in recent years, as well as his family and friends.
Behind the scenes, however, impressions circulate that the diversity in the alliance may have had the effect of parties more or less committed to the Márki-Zay campaign — which, without being affiliated with any of them, had a less enthusiastic network.
“From the opposition’s perspective, the campaign was not as successful as they had hoped,” says Tóka. “But you cannot know what is the fault of the candidate or the government, which has countless advantages in an unfair and undemocratic election.”
There are many imbalance factors. One of them is the propaganda machine that sustains Orbán, through state channels and allied-controlled private broadcasters and newspapers, as well as billboards and social networks. According to opposition calculations, the difference in spending on social networks is of the order of 50 to 1. Tóka estimates that a third of the country “does not listen to the voice of the opposition”.
The issue involving the media is on the list of points being monitored by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). In February, the group set up a special on-site observation mission of the election, with more than 200 people — this is the second time it has carried out such a mission in a European Union country; the first was in 2013, in Bulgaria.
In a preliminary report released on March 21, observers say state broadcaster MTVA operates seven TV channels, seven radio stations and the country’s only news agency, in which a “systemic political bias and an absence of opposition politicians “.
Another particularity is the rule that allows Hungarians residing in neighboring countries to vote by mail — 450,000 voters, more aligned with Fidesz — while those living in more distant nations (including students, for example) have to travel to a consulate. According to the OSCE, a previous recommendation for the government to equalize these rights was not met.
In the votes of neighboring countries, fraud risks are concentrated. On Thursday (31), videos and photos circulated of filled and partially damaged banknotes that would have been found in a landfill in Romania. The opposition and Fidesz accused each other.
“There are no free elections in Hungary, but we are fighting because it is the only chance we have to defeat Fidesz,” Márki-Zay said on Thursday in an interview with foreign journalists. THE sheet asked if, in case of defeat, he would recognize the victory of the adversary. “I already reject the results now. We hope to win, but it still won’t have been a fair election.”
This Sunday, in addition to choosing the prime minister and the new composition of Parliament, Hungarians are also voting in the referendum on the so-called “child protection” law, which prohibits mention of LGBTQIA+ issues to those under 18, including educational topics. Voters must mark “yes” or “no” in response to four questions. One is “Do you support the unrestricted exposure of underage children to sexually explicit media content that may affect their development?”.
Orbán is campaigning for “no” to end what he calls “gender insanity”. “The father is a man and the mother is a woman, and our children must be left alone. We hope that teachers and schools do not re-educate our children,” he said this week. The opposition accuses the government of trying to link the “yes” to its campaign, including the spread of fake news.
Just as anti-immigrant speech was at the heart of the 2018 campaign, the expectation was that the referendum themes would dominate the debate now. But 38 days before the election, Russia invaded Ukraine — and that became the main topic.
Even though Hungary is a member of the European Union and NATO (Western military alliance), Orbán has become, during the 12 years he has been in power, a close ally of Vladimir Putin, ideologically and economically. The war has made his ambiguous speech evident, and the prime minister has sought, in recent weeks, to balance positions.
While he supports sanctions against Russia in the bloc — with the exception of those involving oil and gas, on which Hungary is dependent — he is opposed to the deployment of NATO weapons and troops to Ukraine. In the country, its channels are accused of broadcasting pro-Russian propaganda. “You have to decide who you are with,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told European leaders, including Orbán.
In the campaign, the prime minister says that, while his government defends peace, the opposition is in favor of war and that, if elected, it will allow the passage of “lethal weapons” through Hungarian territory. In Eastern Europe, Orbán faces distrust from historic allies such as Poland and the Czech Republic, which canceled their participation in a meeting of defense ministers scheduled for last week.
Gábor Tóka says that while other political leaders in the field of “illiberal democracy” such as Marine Le Pen in France and Matteo Salvini in Italy were able to quickly distance themselves from Putin, Orbán’s position is more complex. His rapprochement with Russia was a pillar of the view that the West was in decline. “Orbán convinced the domestic audience that it was necessary to be pragmatic in foreign affairs. With the war, it was out of the question for Russia to provide any economic benefit, and this offer is losing credibility.”
Redefining the relationship with Russia is just one of the challenges facing the future prime minister, whoever he may be. The economy, affected by pre-election government spending (on tax breaks and benefits) and rising inflation, will require unpopular measures. Geopolitical isolation and the blocking of EU funds for violations of the rule of law are other ingredients. “Win Orbán or the opposition, it will be very difficult times.”
Who is who
Viktor Orban, 58
Prime Minister of Hungary since 2010, he is one of Europe’s most conservative leaders. Accused of interfering in the country’s justice and education, he supports laws contrary to the LGBTQIA + community. He was also prime minister between 1998 and 2002 and, today, he has expressive popular support in the country.
Péter Márki-Zay, 49
Independent politician, he has been mayor of Hódmezövásárhely since 2018 and the name chosen by the coalition opposing the government. A conservative Catholic, he is a father of seven and explores this background in the campaign. Prior to politics, he worked for multinationals in Hungary, Canada and the US.
