Hungary PM Viktor Orban storms to fourth consecutive win after heated campaign

Orban told his supporters ‘we have won a victory so great you can perhaps see it from the moon’ as the Fidesz party retained two-thirds majority in parliament

The opposition accused Orban of running a campaign of ‘hate and lies’ while the far-right Mi Hazank party will make its debut in legislature

Reading Time:3 minutes

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban waves to his supporters in Budapest on Sunday. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 9:39am, 4 Apr 2022Updated: 3:43pm, 4 Apr 2022

Official results from Hungary’s general election on Sunday showed nationalist Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party had won a fourth term in office by a much greater margin than pre-election polls had suggested, after a campaign overshadowed by the war in neighbouring Ukraine.

Addressing a jubilant crowd chanting his name, many of them wearing Fidesz’s orange party colour, Orban said: “We have won a great victory – a victory so great you can perhaps see it from the moon and certainly from Brussels”.

Orban’s administration has presided over repeated confrontations with the European Union, including over the neutering of the press and judiciary, and measures targeting the LGBTQ community – also the subject of a vote on Sunday.

The 58-year-old, already the longest-serving head of government in the EU, was challenged by six united opposition parties seeking to roll back the “illiberal” revolution Orban’s Fidesz party has pursued during 12 consecutive years in office.

But with 98 per cent of votes counted, Fidesz was on 53.1 per cent compared to 35 per cent for the opposition coalition, according to results from the national election office – a result which means the party will retain its two-thirds majority in parliament.