Election 2018 – RESULT: Fidesz secures sweeping victory for third successive term

Hungary’s incumbent Fidesz-led alliance, based on preliminary results with 95.1 percent of the votes counted, secured a sweeping victory in Sunday’s election, and was on course to win 133 seats in the 199-seat parliament, which would hand it a two-thirds majority. Meanwhile, the nationalist Jobbik party reaffirmed its standing as the country’s main opposition force.

“We’ve secured a historic victory, and created the possibility to protect Hungary,” Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told cheering supporters.

“We’ve won,” Orbán declared in his victory speech, adding that the high turnout had dispelled all doubts of this. “We have a big battle behind us,” he said.

Having pinned his hopes on turning the radical nationalist party into a moderate force, Gábor Vona announced his resignation as leader of the Jobbik party. This was followed by a string of resignations from opposition officials.

The Socialist Party’s national board has tendered its resignation in light of the result of Hungary’s general election, Gyula Molnár, the party’s leader, announced. Molnár said the party acknowledged the will of the voters and considered themselves responsible for the outcome of the election.

The small opposition Együtt party acknowledged the outcome of the election and said the party’s board will resign. Együtt leader Péter Juhász added that he was “disappointed” by the opposition’s performance. Együtt failed to secure 5 percent of the votes cast on national lists, thus failing to make it into parliament.

Meanwhile, the leader of Momentum Movement, András Fekete-Győr, said: “We cannot congratulate Fidesz; we cannot congratulate Viktor Orbán.”

He insisted that the prime minister and the ruling party had “committed political crimes” in Hungary over the past eight, and especially in the last four years. “He has brought fear into the hearts of people who are scared.” Momentum also failed to pass the 5 percent threshold for seats in parliament.

Overwhelming support for Fidesz, especially in the countryside, dashed opposition hopes that the unusually high turnout would increase their chances of knocking back the ruling alliance’s strong majority.

Jobbik secured 26 seats, the Socialist-Párbeszéd alliance 20 seats, the Democratic Coalition 9 seats, green party LMP 8 and Együtt 1 seat. An independent won a single seat and the representative of the German minority one seat.

In his speech, Orbán said Hungary was not yet where it wants to be, but “has embarked down its chosen path”. “We will go down this path together,” he pledged. Orban thanked voters for “standing by us over the years”. He also expressed his gratitude to Hungarians beyond the border who had voted in the election and “helped protect the motherland”.

Orbán further thanked Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, and Mateusz Morawiecki, his Polish counterpart, for their support.

The result was “a vindication of the government’s measures over the past eight years and sends a clear message to Brussels,” Csaba Fodor, an analyst of Nézőpont Institute, told public Kossuth Radio.

Political analyst Zoltán Kiszelly said the projection that a high turnout would work in favour of the opposition had proved wrong.

The projection that Budapest would decide the election outcome was also mistaken because it appeared that cities and villages beyond the capital decided the outcome. Whereas the opposition parties employed novel tactics, this turned out to be in vain, he said.