Péter Magyar has promised a fairer and more proportionate electoral system in Parliament, responding to a question from László Toroczkai, the head of the right-radical Mi Hazánk (Our Homeland) Party. The Tisza Party maintains that the next general election should already be conducted under a more democratic set of rules, although it remains unclear what precise changes the government intends to pursue.
Péter Magyar talks about unjust and disproportionate system
According to experts, one of the principal flaws of the system devised under Viktor Orbán’s governments is that it distorts results in favour of the incumbent winner. This is due, on the one hand, to its single-round structure and, on the other, to the mechanism of “winner compensation”. As a result, it is possible for a government to secure a two-thirds constitutional majority with less than 50 per cent of the party-list vote. Fidesz–KDNP has benefited from this on several occasions; most recently, on 12 April, the Tisza Party won 141 of the 199 parliamentary seats with 53 per cent of the list vote. While such disproportionality ensures governability, many argue that the system should be made both fairer and more representative.
The issue returned to the political agenda after Mr Toroczkai criticised the system’s imbalances in Parliament. The leader of Mi Hazánk argued that the current rules fail to reflect accurately the parties’ actual social support. He singled out winner compensation as particularly problematic, claiming it enables a party to obtain a constitutional majority without an absolute majority of votes.
In response, Mr Magyar noted that under the British or French electoral systems, the Tisza Party would command between 90 and 95 per cent of the seats in the Hungarian Parliament. At the same time, he acknowledged that more proportional systems exist in Europe, citing Germany as an example. He also pointed out that greater proportionality often comes at the cost of political instability and protracted coalition negotiations. While elements of the current Hungarian system serve the purpose of governmental stability, he argued, there is no justification for further amplifying the winner’s advantage, nor for the continual redrawing of constituency boundaries.
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The Prime Minister ultimately pledged that the next election would be held under a “more democratic, fairer and more proportional” system. The reform process, he said, would involve not only parliamentary parties but also extra-parliamentary actors and voters.
What are the main criticisms of the current system?
The electoral framework introduced in 2011 is based on a mixed model: of the 199 members of Parliament, 106 are elected in single-member constituencies and 93 from national party lists. Among the most frequently cited concerns by experts and opposition parties are winner compensation, the heavy weighting of individual constituencies, and the redrawing of electoral boundaries in ways that have favoured Fidesz–KDNP (gerrymandering). Critics argue that these factors can grant the strongest party a parliamentary majority exceeding its share of the vote, as has occurred on several occasions.
The Tisza Party has previously committed, in its programme, to reforming the electoral law and strengthening democratic institutions. For now, however, it remains unclear what specific model the government intends to introduce, or whether the fundamental structure of the current mixed system will be retained.
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