Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his nationalist-populist Fidesz party scored a resounding victory in last night’s election, with results showing that the party would once again win a two-thirds supermajority.
While declaring victory in Budapest, Orbán thank Hungarians for placing their trust in him once again.
“Dear friends, we have won a great victory – a victory so great that you can see it from the moon, but certainly from Brussels,” Orbán said to raucous applause.
“We won because we have a common passion called Hungary,” he added.
With over 98.96 percent of the votes counted, Fidesz, along with its junior coalition partner, the Hungarian Christian Democrats (KDNP), is leading with 53.10 percent of the vote, with the far-left opposition only at 35.04 percent. This would translate into 135 seats in the 199-member parliament for Fidesz, according to the official national election website.
Orbán pointed to the enormous amount of money that flowed into Hungary in the run-up to the election in support of the country’s opposition, emphasizing that the Hungarian people could be not be swayed by outside influence.
“Every penny given to the Hungarian left was a waste of money – it seems that the Hungarian left was the worst investment of Uncle George Soros’ life. For 12 years, the opposition has just been taking money,” he said.
Orbán’s blowout win is widely seen as a humiliating result for Europe’s pollsters, which predicted Orban would eke out only a small victory, and potentially even lose. Hungary’s opposition, United For Hungary, led by Peter Márki-Zay, failed to achieve a win even after making the desperate move to combine nearly the entire five-party opposition into one party. In a further embarrassment for the opposition, Márki-Zay lost his own district by 11 points.
Orbán pointed to the enormous grassroots support of Fidesz, thanking volunteers who helped push his party past the finish line.
“More than 100,000 volunteers have worked so that tonight we can celebrate together — not robots, not mercenaries — but volunteers who love their country and were willing to take the risks and do the hard work,” he said.
Having served as prime minister for 12 years, Orbán is a known entity in Hungarian politics, and his victory will mark his fourth consecutive term, and fifth overall. The Hungarian prime minister campaigned on maintaining Hungary’s strong economy, generous support for Hungarian families, and securing the country’s borders from illegal immigration.
In what is a clear shot at the liberal international press that has consistently complained that Hungary “lacks democracy,” Orbán pointed not to the undisputed popularity of his party, which is the envy of nearly every other leader in Europe. The fact that the election featured such high turnout, which was near 70 percent, will also cement his mandate.
He also noted that regardless of the voting system, his party has won convincing victories over the last 12 years., saying, “We won in 2010 under the old electoral system, we won in 2014 when we were called one by one. We won in 2018 when there was a partial coalition and in 2022 when everyone joined forces against us,”
At the same time, the war in Ukraine has also dominated the campaign trail, with Orbán making the case that a vote for the left would be a vote for war. Although he supported nearly all sanctions on Russia, he refused to ship weapons to Ukraine or apply gas and oil sanctions, warning that such sanctions would irreversibly harm Hungary’s economy. His opponent Márki-Zay took the opposite tact and was open about his willingness to send weapons to Ukraine, which apparently was a stance rejected by the majority of Hungarians.
