The recent by-election results do not show a change of government, but rather a reorganization of the opposition space, political analyst Ervin Nagy told Magyar Nemzet, after Fidesz won three by-elections in a row in just one week.
“We must win an election, not an opinion poll. Sunday’s democratic competition proved that the government parties still have strong social support. At the same time, it has also become certain that there is no dual competition for now, the Tisza Party has fallen behind,” Nagy told the paper.
Regarding the other parties, the analyst said that Our Homeland Movement is also capable of achieving outstanding election results, while DK has greater social embeddedness and a stronger organizational background than the Tisza Party.
“Péter Magyar and (his party) are popular, they are the second strongest opposition force, but the Hungarian electoral system depends on individual representatives,” he said.
He further explained that the opposition parties were not able to present a strong alternative to the government, and this fragmented political landscape helped the government parties become stronger.
“The opposition is not only weak in a political sense, but also disintegrated from an ideological point of view, which does not offer voters an attractive alternative,” Nagy explained.
These recent elections have also shed a negative light on pollsters, he said, as the results did not reflect the desired political narrative, and the publication of polls stopped. “This is not surprising, as surveys often serve political interests, and when they do not show the desired results, the clients tend to remove unpleasant data,” he explained.
The Tisza Party did not run in the by-elections, but according to the analyst, it was apparently important for them to manipulate public opinion before the elections.
“Opinion poll results are not only misleading, but they can also strongly distort voters’ political preferences,” he said.
Nagy also noted that before the 2022 parliamentary elections, several opinion polls were published according to which the left-wing coalition was ahead of Fidesz, but Fidesz went on to achieve a historic victory.
“The distortions experienced in the 2022 elections were the result of deliberate political manipulation. Opinion polls and forecasts often failed to reflect reality and did not predict voter decisions. This type of distortion provides an opportunity to manipulate political discourse and create the appearance that the popularity of ruling parties has declined, while voter decisions show just the opposite.
“The question is therefore not only whether distortion has occurred, but also to what extent these tools are being used to manipulate public opinion and political decision-making,” the expert explained.
This is precisely why more and more people are asking why the surveys do not reflect the real political situation.
“Public opinion polls often use faulty sampling or do not take into account the different layers of society, so the results are distorted. Many people do not tell the truth during the surveys, so they do not give an accurate picture of the real state of the political balance of power. Moreover, the success of the ruling parties is influenced not only by traditional political mechanisms, but also by specific government measures and public policy decisions,” Nagy said.
