Ethnic Hungarian RMDSZ secures seats in EP, Hungarian mayors re-elected in several Romanian cities

Romania’s ethnic Hungarian party RMDSZ reached the 5 percent European parliamentary threshold, while several Romanian cities, such as Târgu Mures (Marosvásárhely), elected a Hungarian mayor.

RMDSZ can keep two seats in the EP

According to the RMDSZ’s own calculations, the party has reached the 5% threshold, so it can keep its two seats in the EP, Botond Csoma, spokesman of the RMDSZ, told Transtelex. The RMDSZ politicians had already calculated on Sunday that they had collected the half a million votes needed to qualify, but it was not certain at the time that they would exceed the 5 percent threshold.

Commenting on the events, Sándor Csoma told the portal, “[w]e have not had such a result in 20 years.” According to Hunor Kelemen, president of the RMDSZ, based on 99% of the votes cast for the EP lists, the party received 566,000 votes, which is their best result in any election since 2004.

Photo: FB/RMDSZ

Viktor Orbán also congratulated the RMDSZ party for reaching the 5 percent European parliamentary threshold in his speech in reaction to the results on Monday.

Hungarian mayors re-elected in several Romanian cities

Index reports that according to a parallel vote count conducted by his campaign staff, the independent candidate Zoltán Soós won the mayoral election in Târgu Mures. He took the lead with a significant margin of more than 22,000 votes, while his opponent Dorin Florea, a former Romanian mayor of the city collected 16,000 votes. The figures were recorded at the incomplete processing stage when the votes were counted in 77 of the 85 polling stations.

The turnout figures published by the Romanian Central Election Office showed, that 62,637 people voted in the local and EP elections in Târgu Mures, one of the most important cities for Hungarians in Transylvania, on Sunday, representing 52.30 percent of the electorate, MTI reported on Monday morning.

Palace of Culture (Kultúrpalota) in Târgu Mureș (Marosvásárhely), Transylvania, Romania. Source: Wikimedia Commons/Derzsi Elekes Andor

Soós was not the only one who was able to secure his position again, as in Satu Mare (Szatmárnémeti), Gábor Kereskényi won his third mandate by a large margin too, according to the partial results. 96 060 voters, 44.87 percent of those eligible to vote cast their ballot in Satu Mare County. Kereskényi, who is running for the RMDSZ, announced his victory on his Facebook page on Monday morning after it emerged that he was leading by 65 percent in 18 of the 74 polling stations.

The RMDSZ announced that they also managed to retain the mayor’s seat in the Romanian-majority Mures County town of Reghin (Szászrégen), where Mayor Endre Márk was re-elected. According to the Alliance, the RMDSZ also won the leadership of Odorheiu Secuiesc (Székelyudvarhely), where its candidate István Szakács-Paál won over the local Székelyudvarhelyért Party mayor Árpád Gálfi, who was set to run for re-election.

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