Fidesz maintains lead, opposition parties strengthen

(MTI) – Although ruling Fidesz maintained its firm lead ahead of its rivals, the opposition left-of-centre parties, namely the Socialists, the Democratic Coalition and the E-PM alliance, increased their support in August, a poll released by Ipsos on Thursday showed.

With two months ahead of the local elections, the electorate became more active which is reflected in the increase of the proportion of those indicating firm intent to vote to 48 percent this month from 44 percent in July, the pollster said.

This trend is also reflected in a drop of voters with no clear party preference to 30 percent from 34 percent, Ipsos said.

Both trends benefitted parties on the left, the pollster said.

While support for Fidesz stayed level at 33 percent in the whole sample, it went up for the Socialists by two points to 12 percent, and for DK and E-PM one point each to 3 percent. Support for radical nationalist Jobbik dropped one point to 12 percent and remained the same for small green LMP at 3 percent.

Among decided voters who are certain to go to the polls, support for Fidesz dropped to 49 percent from 56 percent, while it went up for Jobbik to 19 percent from 16 percent and for the Socialists to 18 percent from 15 percent in July.

In this group DK reached the parliamentary entry threshold of 5 percent, while LMP lost one point to stand at 3 percent and E-PM stayed level at 3 percent, the poll showed.

Ipsos conducted the poll by asking 1,000 voting-age adults in the second week of August.

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters