Hungarian ruling party Fidesz’s support has plummeted

Fidesz’s popularity has fallen by 12 percentage points due to the events of recent weeks, according to Publicus Institute. Two-thirds of those polled say the party has broken its election promises, and even its own voters see the events of recent weeks as austerity.

Survey by Publicus Institute

According to a survey conducted by the Publicus Institute (which is not an independent pollster) on behalf of Népszava, 80 percent of respondents consider the restructuring of overhead cuts and the small business tax (kata) system to be a cutback. With this, 49 percent if Fidesz supporters polled also agree, 24.hu writes. Although Viktor Orbán still said on his Facebook page on Tuesday evening that the overhead cuts would remain, the recent poll shows that two thirds of people (68 percent) do not believe him, believing that Fidesz has broken its election promise.

Ruling party Fidesz lied?

58 percent of respondents said that Fidesz’s claim that the Hungarian economy is strong and that the benefits are sustainable was a lie, while 18 percent said it was a mistake. Equally remarkable is the fact that 70 percent of respondents are not satisfied with the way “things are going in the country”, mfor.hu writes. Only 2 percent of respondents consider the current state of the Hungarian economy to be very good and a further 20 percent rather good, while 32 percent consider it to be rather bad and 45 percent very bad. This is obviously helped by the fact that on average respondents perceive inflation at 44 percent.

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Serious problems

Respondents generally consider the following things to be serious problems:

• food price increases (60%),
• the rise in utility prices (57%),
• a reduction in the purchasing power of pensions and salaries (49%),
• a reduction in savings (43%),
• the cost of living in general (30%),
• unemployment (8%).

With the change in the reduction of the overheads cuts (i.e. the increasing prices):

• 25 percent of respondents agree,
• 10 percent agree,
• 48 percent disagree,
• 14 percent somewhat disagree.

The majority expect their gas and electricity consumption to exceed the subsidised rate. Of these, 61 percent indicated gas and 81 percent electricity. On average, people perceive inflation at 44 percent. 31 percent say that “the war is more responsible for this, and to a lesser extent, the government’s economic policy”. 34 percent say “government economic policy is more responsible, the war in Ukraine less responsible”, while 29 percent said the two have “equal responsibility”.

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Fidesz’s support is falling

All of this has already eroded Fidesz’s support, according to the polling institute, as its popularity has fallen by 12 percent in a month. However, it is not the opposition parties that have benefited from this, but rather the camp of the undecided has grown.

If the elections were held now, 24 percent of all respondents would vote for Fidesz and 23 percent for the opposition alliance. The Two-Tailed Dog Party (Kétfarkú Kutyapárt) and Our Homeland (Mi Hazánk) would get 3-3 percent, other parties only 1 percent. The share of undecideds is 46 percent. Fidesz is on 32 percent of the sure voters, the united opposition on 31 percent. A surprisingly large number of voters (79 percent) said they would definitely participate in the election, reports mfor.hu.

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Source: 24.hu, mfor.hu