EP elections 2024: pollsters expect 5 Hungarian parties to clinch EP mandates

The ruling Fidesz and Christian Democrat (KDNP) parties are expected to receive most mandates at the European parliamentary elections on June 9, with another four parties standing a chance to make it to the EP, the representatives of five polling institutions said in a roundtable discussion on Thursday.

Presenting their findings, heads of the Alapjogokért Központ, the Nézőpont institute, Magyar Társadalomkutató, Real-PR 93 and Századvég agreed that the runner-up was likely to be the Tisza party followed by the alliance of the Democratic Coalition (DK), the Socialists and Párbeszéd, with the radical Mi Hazánk (Our Homeland) and the Two-tailed Dog party (MKKP) bringing up the rear. As we wrote earlier, 11 EP lists to compete in Hungary on 9 June.

Nézőpont head Ágoston Sámuel Mraz said the pollster’s survey, conducted on a 1,000-strong sample between May 20 and 22, found that Fidesz-KDNP had the support of 47 percent of voters, while 24 percent supported the Tisza party, 9 percent the DK-Socialist-Parbeszed alliance, and Mi Hazank and MKKP stood at 7 percent each. Other parties “have no chance of getting in”, he said.

While turnout is notoriously difficult to forecast, it is expected to be similar to that of previous elections, Mraz said. The last EP election mobilised 43 percent of voters, while 48 percent turned out for the last local election, he said.

Similarly, Alapjogokért has found that the ruling parties’s support was the strongest (47 percent), with Tisza at 26 percent, the DK-Socialist-Parbeszed group at 8 percent, and Mi Hazank and MKKP at 6 percent each.

Gyula Juhász of Magyar Társadalomkutató cited a larger survey conducted over 3 weeks that probed the opinions of 4,000 voters, saying that the results showed Fidesz-KDNP’s “enormous” lead growing as the elections drew near, and stood at 51 percent at the time of polling. Meanwhile, Tisza polled at 25 percent, DK-Socialists-Párbeszéd at 8 percent, while Mi Hazánk and MKKP were teetering near the parliamentary threshold at 4-5 percent, he said.

read also: Interesting figures: Hungarians living in Western Europe ‘immune’ to Fidesz