The runoff election, which ended at the weekend, surprisingly clearly won the non-party conservative Peter Marki-Zay with 57 percent against the social democrat Klara Dobrev with 43 percent of the vote, as the pre-election commission announced on Monday night on its Facebook page . Marki-Zay, who went into the primary as a blatant outsider, is the challenger to right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban, supported by six opposition parties.
This was the first time such an area code existed in Hungary. The six parties, whose spectrum ranges from left-green to right-wing conservative, were previously hopelessly divided. Participation in the primary, which began the previous month, exceeded all expectations. 630,000 citizens voted in the first round, 660,000 in the second.
“This is the revolution of the common people,” said Marki-Zay late on Sunday evening. The opposition can only succeed together in voting out “the most corrupt government in the last 1000 years”. Dobrev reiterated their support for the victorious rival. “From now on all of us will only be concerned with clearing the Orban system,” she said.
Marki-Zay’s strengths: As a conservative from the Hungarian lowlands, an avowed Catholic and father of seven children, he can appeal to voters in the country who are conservative but may no longer be so convinced of Orban’s rule. At the same time, he does not piss off the urban, rather left-wing voters of the big cities, because his conservatism is combined with open-mindedness, tolerance and the ability to compromise.
Marki-Zay studied economics, electrical engineering and history. From 2004 to 2009 he lived with his family in Canada and the USA. He only got into politics in 2018. At that time he won – also surprisingly – the mayoral election in Hodmezövasarhely. Until then, the place was considered an impregnable stronghold of the Orban party Fidesz. The following year he repeated the election victory.
The election victories in his south-eastern Hungarian homeland were only possible because all the opposition parties had rallied around him. In this respect, the campaigns of that time are considered the blueprint for the current opposition alliance. The idea of the area code was in turn developed by political scientists and think tanks.
Nobody was able to predict the real dynamics of the area code. When the first round began, pollsters Marki-Zay had predicted, at best, fourth place out of five applicants. But as a surprising third-place winner, he made it into the runoff election. The second-placed left-green mayor of Budapest, Gergely Karacsony, decided not to appear in the second round in favor of Marki-Zay.
In the meantime the opinion had matured in the opposition that only Marki-Zay, but not Dobrev, would be able to beat Orban in an election. The Social Democrat is married to the former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany and belongs to the Democratic Coalition (DK) that he founded and leads. Gyurcsany’s term in office from 2004 to 2009 was overshadowed by scandals and the Budapest street riots in autumn 2006.
Orban has ruled in uninterrupted succession since 2010. Critics accuse him of an authoritarian leadership style and massive corruption. He has packed state institutions, which should actually act neutrally, such as the public prosecutor’s office, the judiciary and the constitutional court, with loyal party soldiers. In opinion polls, Orban’s ruling party Fidesz and the united opposition have recently been head to head.