Hungary election goes to the wire as PM Viktor Orban seeks fourth term
- The six main opposition parties are for the first time fielding a joint list, determined to roll back the Orban administration’s ‘illiberal’ leadership
- More than 200 international observers are monitoring the election for the first time, along with thousands of domestic volunteers from both camps
Nationalist Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban faced a tough challenge with a united opposition in an unpredictable general election on Sunday, after a campaign dominated by Russia’s invasion of neighbouring Ukraine.
The six main opposition parties are for the first time fielding a joint list, determined to roll back the “illiberal” revolution that Orban’s Fidesz party has pursued during 12 consecutive years in office.
That has involved repeated confrontations with EU institutions, including over the neutering of the press and judiciary, and measures targeting the LGBT community.
By early afternoon turnout stood at 40 per cent, down slightly from the record participation seen at the last national elections in 2018.
Orban himself voted on Sunday morning at a school in a leafy Budapest suburb and told reporters he was expecting a “great victory”.
Challenger Peter Marki-Zay, head of the main opposition alliance, cast his ballot accompanied by his wife and seven children after attending mass in the city of Hodmezovasarhely, where he inflicted a shock defeat on Fidesz’s candidate to become mayor in 2018.
He said the opposition had to battle “unfair and impossible circumstances”.