Hungarian ruling party Fidesz scored another resounding victory in the European elections on Sunday, continuing its uninterrupted series of wins in national, local, and EU elections dating back to 2009. The conservative party, led by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, received 44.7% of the votes, and 11 of the 21 seats allocated to Hungary in the European Parliament (EP).
Though the percentage of the vote was not as high as five years ago, when Fidesz finished with 52.6%, high voter turnout meant that the party got almost 200,000 more votes than last time.
Referring to the results, Viktor Orbán said voters backed his government’s pro-peace policy. Fidesz had been campaigning on an anti-war platform, urging the EU to stop sending weapons to Ukraine and start focusing on peace talks instead, emphasising that the war was harming the EU’s economy. He also vowed that his government would represent an anti-immigration, anti-gender ideology and an anti-federalist stance at the EU level. “To sum up the results of the European elections, we can send it as a telegram to Brussels as the following: Migration, stop. Gender, stop. War, stop. Soros, stop. Brussels, stop,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Hungarian opposition went through a complete transformation with the arrival of a new political actor on the scene. Péter Magyar’s Respect and Freedom party (Tisza) was formed only a few months ago, yet managed to get 29.7% of the votes, and 7 seats in the EP. Magyar is the ex-husband of former Fidesz Justice Minister Judit Varga. He held various positions in Fidesz-era state companies and ministries but made a name for himself earlier this year when he started criticising and accusing the government of corruption. He emerged into the limelight following a decision by then-President Novák Katalin to pardon a man convicted of covering up child sexual abuse. Novák left office after calls for her to resign by both government and opposition supporters.
Péter Magyar has positioned himself as a centrist, attempting to differentiate himself from both Fidesz and the Left. His policies are still shrouded in mystery as he has voiced opinions similar to those of both the government and the left-wing opposition. “The Tisza Party will prove to the Hungarian voters that politics can be beautiful, just, and honest,” he said on Sunday night.
Reflecting on Western media coverage of Viktor Orbán’s supposedly ‘bad’ results, Hungarian conservative weekly Mandiner wrote:
Fidesz did not achieve its “weakest ever result,” but its most valuable EP victory ever: during a time of war, in a difficult international environment, after two painful years for the Hungarian economy, and in the shadow of a scandal that cut right into the hearts of right-wing voters.
Other opposition parties were obliterated by Péter Magyar: the left-wing political alliance formed around previous prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsány managed to get only 2 seats (down from 4) in the European Parliament, and one seat went to the right-wing eurosceptic Our Homeland Movement.
“Today we defeated the old opposition and the new opposition, and it doesn’t matter what the current opposition is called, we will defeat it again and again,” said Viktor Orbán.
As left-wing commentator András Hont wrote in a Facebook post:
The Hungarian Left has been wiped out, and a new opposition electorate has been formed: one that votes against Orbán by first voting against the official opposition.
With regards to future ally-building in the European Parliament, the prime minister’s party is currently without a group in the EP, after leaving the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) in 2021 due to the EPP’s shift to the Left. Fidesz will likely join the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), a group that includes Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy and the Polish Law and Justice (PiS). Orbán recently said he would welcome a merger of the ECR and the Identity and Democracy group, led by Marine Le Pen’s National Rally. At the same time, the Tisza Party could be on the verge of joining the EPP.
Hungary also held mayoral and local elections on Sunday, and the result was a familiar sight: Fidesz won big in rural areas and many smaller cities but the opposition had a majority in the capital, Budapest. However, the Budapest mayoral election itself is tight: only 300 votes separate incumbent left-wing Mayor Gergely Karácsony and his rival, Dávid Vitézy, a former Fidesz state secretary, who ran as an independent. The ballots in Budapest may have to be recounted.