Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban will retain his position for the next four years after his ruling Fidesz party swept to a supermajority for the third consecutive time on April 8, beating most estimates as turnout was near record levels at 70%. 

Orban’s latest landslide victory may not be good news for the markets. Analysts foresee further conflicts between an emboldened new Orban government and the EU, which may damage Hungary economically. With a two-thirds majority Orban can amend the Constitution.

A poll by Bloomberg showed fund managers favouring a slim (rather than a substantial) Fidesz victory, while Viktor Zsiday, head of fund manager Hold Alapkezelo, described a supermajority for Orban as a “dangerous scenario” that would enable his government to crack down on “what remains of democratic institutions”. This may well trigger responses that could hurt Hungary economically, he said.

Fidesz received 48.5% of the votes on the party list (votes are cast for party lists and in single-seat constituencies), up from 43% four years ago, with nearly 2mn votes cast for the incumbent party. The win gives Orban's party 133 seats in the 199 seat legislature, a two-thirds majority by a single vote.

The election map shows Hungary turning orange, the colour of the ruling party, which dominated the landscape everywhere, especially in smaller towns and rural areas.

The results show that Fidesz managed to efficiently mobilise its base due to its vast network of activists and huge database of supporters. Contrary to the expectations of many political analysts, they managed to turn a high turnout to their advantage.

Opposition devastated

Opposition parties suffered a major blow in Sunday's election, winning only 15 of the 106 individual districts, most of them in Budapest. 

They had previously been emboldened by the win of an independent candidate in a mayoral by-election in a Fidesz stronghold in February, but they failed to reach a compromise on withdrawing their candidates in favour of the strongest rivals to Fidesz and running on a joint list, the only viable chance for them to unseat Fidesz MPs under the current election system.

After talks of a wider cooperation between them failed, they pinned their hopes on a high turnout, as the polls showed the vast majority of the 1mn undecided voters favouring a change of government, but this hope proved to be unfounded. 

Parties failed to come up with a clear economic vision but more importantly, they failed to respond to the aggressive Fidesz campaign, and their message of widespread corruption in Hungary did not get through to voters, analysts said.

Right-wing Jobbik won 19.5% of the popular vote but got only 27 seats due to the structure of the election system. Despite leaving its racist and anti-EU rhetoric behind, the party managed to win just a single new district.

The largest leftist opposition alliance, the Socialist-Dialogue, will have 20 seats in parliament after receiving 12.3% of the votes. Green opposition party LMP received 6.9% of the votes. Democratic Coalition (DK), headed by former prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsany, will be the fifth party to enter the parliament with 5.6% of the votes.

Jobbik party leader Gabor Vona announced his resignation after the results came out, as the party failed to run a tight race with Fidesz and only managed to keep its base. On Sunday night, the head of the Socialist party also said he will quit. Analysts expect the blame game to start on the opposition landscape. LMP has already been blamed for not withdrawing its candidates in Budapest, which gave Fidesz six mandates.

Nasty campaign

The campaign was one of the nastiest ever as Fidesz has narrowed down its campaign message to the single issue of immigration, painting an apocalyptical view of the country if it accepted even a few thousand migrants. The government has spent hundreds of billions of forints on ads and billboards in the last couple of years.

Orban played successfully on the fears of Hungarians, especially those in rural areas, where people have few if any contacts with foreigners.

Orban said that at stake in the election is Hungary's sheer existence, and claimed the country would lose its identity if candidates from opposition parties — who he termed “Soros candidates” — won the election. They would turn Hungary into a “migrant country”, he said.

State-owned media, a mouthpiece for the government, ran stories of crimes committed by Muslims, and pointed to the situation in Western European countries, where a large number of Muslim immigrants live. Government propaganda said opposition parties would open up empty barracks and vacant homes to house migrants.

Uneven playing field

Some 8mn people were eligible to vote in Sunday’s election in addition to the several hundred thousand votes by Hungarian nationals with no address in Hungary, who in previous elections overwhelmingly supported the conservative party.

Fidesz transformed the election laws before the 2014 election, reducing the number of seats in the one-chamber legislature from 386, replacing a two-round with a one-round system and redrawing the electoral maps in a way that favoured the incumbent.

The rules were also changed to allow non-Hungarian residents with Hungarian citizenship to vote. Ethnic Hungarians living in neighbouring countries could send their vote to a local constituency election office or to the National Election Office by April 7, while Hungarians working abroad could only cast their votes at foreign missions.

Voters who registered themselves elsewhere than their home addresses queued in front of polling stations in Budapest for hours after the polls officially closed at 7pm. This delayed the posting of results by the National Election Committee (NVI) for several hours. The NVI's website was not available for hours during the day and the website of the Socialist party came under attack by hackers.

Delegates of opposition parties reported several cases of election fraud, such as the mass mobilisation of voters to polling stations in rural areas. In poor areas Fidesz MPs handed out food and drink, and in some districts the local Roma population were threatened by the mayor of the village that they would lose their public work status if they didn’t vote for the ruling party.