Won 53 percent of the votes
Orban celebrates “enormous” election victory in Hungary
4/4/2022, 3:10 am
It is no surprise that Prime Minister Orban was confirmed in office in Hungary’s parliamentary elections. However, the overwhelming majority of votes he gets for himself and his Fidesz party represents an extraordinary success.
The right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban celebrated an unexpected triumph in the parliamentary elections in Hungary. His Fidesz party got 53 percent after counting almost all the votes. She could have won 135 of the 199 parliamentary seats. Orban is expected to govern with a constitution-amending two-thirds majority for the fourth time in a row.
The opposition alliance “Hungary in Unity” performed far below expectations. The merger of six parties from the left, green, liberal and right spectrum received only 35 percent of the vote and 56 seats. The opinion polls before the election had given the Fidesz party a lead of one to ten percentage points.
The far-right Our Home party also made it into parliament with six percent of the vote and seven seats. A mandate achievable for nationalities went to the representative of the German minority, who is considered an ally of the Fidesz party. Voter turnout was almost 70 percent, about the same as four years ago.
Orban declares Brussels an enemy
“We won a tremendous victory,” Orban said to cheering supporters on election night. “A victory so powerful that you can even see it from the moon, but certainly from Brussels.” He was alluding to his permanent conflicts with the EU, to which his country has belonged since 2004.
“Enormous international powerhouses have positioned themselves against us,” he continued. Among the numerous enemies of his nationalist policies he counted “the international left, Brussels, the international media and the Ukrainian president.” Volodymyr Zelenskyj had recently asked Orban to move away from Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin and to side with Ukraine, which was attacked by Russia.
The opposition’s lead candidate, Peter Marki-Zay, conceded defeat. “It was an uneven and impossible fight, but we faced it,” he said. “We went into this fight under unequal conditions, with our legs tied, with a lance in our back, but we didn’t win.” Marki-Zay, a non-party conservative, is mayor of the small town of Hodmezövasarhely in south-eastern Hungary. The opposition alliance had chosen him as their top candidate in primary elections they organized last fall.
“Keep Hungary out of the war”
Election researchers attributed the government camp’s unexpectedly clear success to the fact that the majority of voters were satisfied with the state of affairs in the country. Living conditions for many Hungarians had improved during Orban’s 12-year reign. At the same time, the head of government managed to calm people’s minds in view of the Russian war against Ukraine. With his assertion that only he could “keep Hungary out of the war,” he betrayed his close relationship with the leadership in Moscow.
He half-heartedly supported the EU’s sanctions against Russia. In turn, he accused the opposition, without presenting any evidence, of “dragging the country into the war”. According to critics, Orban’s dominance of politics in Hungary shows authoritarian traits. He shut down independent newspapers, radio stations and Internet portals, mostly by having them bought up by oligarchs close to him. During the election campaign, only an eighth of the billboard space was allocated to the opposition compared to Fidesz advertising. In the public service media, the Orban government has been uncritically praised for twelve years, while those in the opposition are either ignored or defamed.