Election 2018 – Pollsters: Ruling parties may have ‘stable majority’

The ruling Fidesz-Christian Democrat alliance could win a “stable, strong majority” in the April 8 election, participants in a conference attended by public opinion research institutes concluded on Tuesday.

According to the average of aggregated figures by all pollsters, the ruling parties could garner 51 percent of the votes, followed by radical nationalist Jobbik with 17 percent, the Socialist-Párbeszéd alliance with 14 percent, Democratic Coalition (DK) with 8 percent and LMP with 7 percent if the elections were held this weekend.

The conference was attended by analysts of Nézőpont, Publicus, Republikon, Iránytű, ZRI-Závecz Research, Tárki, Századvég and IDEA.

Participants agreed that the voter base of the leftist parties taken together is larger than that of Jobbik, and also that voter turnout at the polls would be somewhat higher than in 2014.

Republikon’s Andrea Virág, citing the company’s survey conducted in February, said that the ruling parties could have between 125-130 seats in the 199-strong national assembly, while Socialist-Párbeszéd 25-30, Jobbik 20-25, and DK and LMP 7-8 each.

Tibor Závecz, the head of Závecz Research, said he saw “little chance” for Fidesz to have a two-thirds majority again. He envisaged Jobbik as the largest opposition party and Socialist-Párbeszéd having “10 plus” percent of the votes, just above the parliamentary threshold.

Nézőpont’s Dániel Nagy said that small opposition Momentum could clear the parliamentary threshold of 5 percent if they made “an outsprint” and added that the satirical Two-Tailed Dog party could “also surprise us in Budapest”.

Zoltán Ember, Iránytű’s head of research, said that most constituencies in Budapest could be “taken by the Left”, while Jobbik could win a large part of northern Hungary.

Several participants noted that voter turnout would benefit Fidesz only up to 65 percent, while the small parties could suffer if turnout is 72-73 percent or higher.

Publicus head András Pulai said a key question was which parties could mobilise undecided voters; he insisted that some 200,000-300,000 Fidesz supporters could be disappointed with the ruling parties and their abstaining from the vote is a “real danger” for Fidesz. Two thirds of the “active undecided” want a government change, but they may not vote on the same party and they could even stay at home saying “if you can’t decide I won’t, either,” he added.

Ember said Iránytű had gauged growing activity with opposition supporters, while activity in the Fidesz camp was stagnating, but “it just means that the opposition has closed the gap”.

Závecz put the number of “active undecided for a government change” at 400,000 and said they are the ones that would vote but have not selected a party to support yet.

Participants agreed that popularity figures for Fidesz are usually higher than reality, with more respondents claiming than they would vote for the ruling party than actually do so, while the leftist parties tend to be underrated.

Featured image: MTI

Source: MTI