2014-04-08

Hungarian Right Dominates Election

Hungary's right-wing won a huge victory in parliamentary elections. Fidesz, with its coalition partner, won 44% of the vote and has enough seats in parliament to change the constitution without any support from the opposition parties.

On top that big victory, the only serious opposition now comes from further to the right: Jobbik. It won 20% of the vote.

Hungarian election: Viktor Orbán wins second term as Jobbik support soars
Orbán has clashed repeatedly with the EU and foreign investors over his maverick policies, but many Hungarians regard the 50-year-old former dissident against communist rule as a champion of national interests. Under his government, personal income tax and household power bills have fallen.

After 71% of the ballots were counted, election officials projected Orbán's Fidesz party would win 135 of the 199 seats in parliament – passing the two-thirds threshold needed for his party to unilaterally change the constitution.

In the past four years, Orbán's policies have included a nationalisation of private pension funds, swingeing "crisis taxes" on big business and a relief scheme for mortgage holders for which the banks, mostly foreign-owned, had to pay.

The socialist-led leftist alliance was projected to win 39 seats, with 25 going to Jobbik, whose share of the national vote on party lists rose from 15.9% four years ago to 21.25%.

Prior coverage of the rise of Hungary's right.

In June 2012 I wrote:
Viktor Orbán leads the right-wing Fidesz party. It is portrayed as extreme right-wing by the European media, with some truth, but the reality is also that Fidesz isn't the far right. There's no love between Fidesz and the more left-wing European establishment, but to the extent the European left weakens Orban, the result will not be to their liking. Instead of helping the Socialists retake power, they are increasingly likely to assist the far-right Jobbik party.
Looks like they failed on both counts. Orban is as popular as ever, and Jobbik is rising too.

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