The National Election Office (NVI) on Friday started recounting the invalid votes cast at the Budapest mayoral election at the June 9 election.
NVI head Attila Nagy said officials were looking for valid votes erroneously classified as invalid, and scrutinise each vote with more than one mark on the sheet.
National Election Committee head Róbert Sasvári said a decision could be forthcoming as soon as Friday afternoon.
At the vote on Sunday, Karácsony prevailed with 371,466 votes, while Vitézy got 371,142. The candidate of the radical nationalist Our Homeland Movement, András Grundtner, garnered 38,942 votes.
Gergely Karácsony, the candidate of the Dialogue-Greens-Democratic Coalition-Socialists alliance in the recent election for Budapest mayor, has initiated that the elections in all the city’s districts should be repeated.
Karácsony initiates a repeat
Karácsony told a press conference on Thursday that recounting the invalid votes in Sunday’s election would involve “so many legal uncertainties that it could only be remedied by way of a new election”.
Karácsony said he would not accept the National Election Committee’s (NVB) decision even if it favoured him and would insist on a new election.
Earlier in the day, the committee ordered a recount of the invalid votes at the request of Dávid Vitézy, the runner-up in Sunday’s election, a candidate of LMP-Greens and the With Vitézy for Budapest association.
Karácsony insisted that the recount process, ordered by the committee in a “martial law decision” would not ensure “any constitutional guarantees” and its results could not be reassuring for Budapest’s residents. He said it was clear that “Fidesz had based its strategy on misleading voters” with regard to withdrawing its candidate, Alexandra Szentkirályi, “in the last minute”.
Karácsony also said that “the so-called evidence” did not justify a recount neither on the basis of earlier legal practice nor under effective regulations. He said the “evidence” were “uniform statements of polling officials delegated by Fidesz, saying that they suspected “that something was wrong … statements by people who had on Monday certified with their signature that the votes (to be recounted) were invalid.”
NVB’s ordering the local election offices to open the ballot boxes and send to the National Election Office (NVI) the invalid votes “raises further doubt”, Karácsony said, adding that “it is hard not to assume that there was no hidden political motivation behind that”. The situation is further aggravated by the fact that the NVB had not made it mandatory for the local committees that the ballot boxes should be opened in the presence of representatives of all the parties. “Who knows, by the time the votes reach the election office, somebody may have put an x next to Vitézy’s name … it is very easy to make a valid vote for Vitézy out of an invalid one,” he suggested.
“We cannot be sure that nothing happens during the recount process that could change the final result,” he said.
Once a new election is held both voters and election officials “will be presented with a clear legal situation,” Karácsony said, adding that “a city can only be managed on a basis of trust and that trust seems to be lost through Fidesz’s manipulative strategy and NVB’s ill-advised decisions,” he said.
Answering a question, he said he would appeal against the NVB decision in the Supreme Court, the Kuria.
Commenting on Karácsony’s presser, Vitézy said Karácsony was “seeking (new) elections until he wins the vote”. Vitézy said on Facebook that “the election took place on Sunday; we should now see clearly who has won”.
Vitézy insisted that “the elections were organised by Karácsony, managed by the city, the mayor being responsible for any systemic error or irregularity”. He said the recount of votes, that he had requested, would “remedy the mistakes in counting”, for which he said the election officers should not be blamed but misleading written instructions and “positions by the municipal election authorities arriving late or not at all at the polling stations”.
Dávid Vitézy, the runner-up at Sunday’s local election for Budapest mayor, said on Wednesday that he initiated a recount of invalid votes cast at the ballot.
Vitézy, a candidate of opposition LMP and the With Dávid Vitézy for Budapest Association, told a press conference that he believed a systemic error had been made, as demonstrated by the record 24,592 invalid votes.
More than 200 constituencies have reported on invalid ballots, he said.
Vitézy on his way to the City Hall to submit recount appeal and evidence:
He said that following the withdrawal of Alexandra Szentkirályi’s candidacy for Budapest mayor there was no standard directive on how her name should be crossed over on election slips. He said that Szentkirályi’s name was crossed over very lightly in the 7th and 4th districts and the number of invalid votes was higher than average in these districts.
Under election law, a vote remains valid even if Szentkirályi’s name is marked by the voter on the election slip if another name is also marked on the same slip, he said.
He added that he was not raising the suspicion of intentional irregularities having been committed, but insisted that there had been a systemic error.
If a recount is not carried out, the resulting uncertainty would undermine the legitimacy of the mayor, he said.
Sunday’s municipal and EP elections in Hungary saw a record-high turnout of 58 percent. It was also a historic event as never before have European and local elections been held on the same day in the country. Fidesz came out as the absolute winner, but the Tisza Party has entered the political arena, reshuffling the balance of power amongst the opposition. Here is a round-up of the takeaways from the elections.
In Budapest, a few hundred ballots made the difference: a recount could be on the table
After an all-night tight race, Gergely Karácsony, the candidate of DK-MSZP-Dialogue and Momentum, won the mayoral election, despite his challenger, Dávid Vitézy, leading for the majority of the evening. Karácsony won by a margin of only 324 votes and the number of invalid votes was relatively high. Therefore, as reported by DNH, Vitézy called for a recount of the ballots.
Although several press outlets haveunderlined that a recount may be carried out under Hungarian law only if a specific violation is reported – a small margin is therefore not in itself a reason for a recount -, Péter Ungár of LMP also spoke of a recount today in the Parliament, according to 444.
As we wrote today, Vitézy calls for a recount, details HERE.
Gergely Karácsony and Dávid Vitézy during a mayoral debate. Photo: FB/Partizán
The General Assembly of Budapest might see trouble in the future
Another precarious situation regarding the capital stems from the makeup of its Assembly, in which the number of representatives will be distributed this autumn as follows:
Fidesz-KDNP: 10
Tisza Party: 10
Dialogue-DK-MSZP: 7
Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog Party: 3
Dávid Vitézy for Budapest-LMP-Greens: 3
Péter Magyar and Dávid Vitézy (if the number of votes for mayor does not change) have also been elected to the Assembly.
In such a diverse formation, it will be a matter of uncertainty about what kind of coalition the next mayor can build, as no political force will be able to govern independently. To get a majority, at least 17 politicians will need to join forces, and at the moment this could be done in several ways, all of which would require a great deal of tactical maneuvering.
444 points out that the situation is complicated by the fact that Péter Magyar does not wish to formally cooperate with any of the mayoral candidates. For Karácsony – who presumably will not enter into a coalition with Fidesz -, on the other hand, the 10 Tisza Party representatives would be indispensable allies. In the case of Vitézy, cooperation with Fidesz might be conceivable, but for Fidesz-KDNP, a partnership with opposition parties is likely out of the question, meaning that reaching the magic number of 17 could be difficult for him, as well.
Ferenc Gelencsér, Gergely Karácsony and Anna Donáth. Source: Facebook/Momentum Mozgalom
The great loser of the local elections is Momentum, which, although securing three mayoral positions in Budapest, cannot send a single member to the capital’s assembly. Largely due to the reform of the electoral system in Budapest, adopted by the Fidesz parliamentary majority six months before the elections, which made it so that mayors are no longer automatically members of the assembly.
On Monday, Anna Donáth announced that she would step down as Momentum’s leader following the defeat of the party.
The country is coloured orange, but Fidesz saw setbacks everywhere
Political analyst Gábor Török wrote that the municipal election results are very similar to those of 2019, even if a few cities have changed hands. By and large, Sunday was a success for Fidesz, but the picture is not so simple. As Telex reports, more than 20 municipalities have replaced Fidesz mayors, many ousted after being in power for decades.
In Orosháza, the candidate of the opposition coalition won against Fidesz’s Zoltán Dávid after ten years. The independent candidate from Tököl, Zoltán Tóth, broke an even longer Fidesz reign: after 35 years in office, Pál Hoffman did not run this year, and Lucia Vass, the Fidesz candidate who was set to replace him, was defeated by Tóth.
The opposition also scored successes in Balatonalmádi, Paks, Biatorbágy, Tolna, Szolnok, Pápa, and, perhaps as one of its most notable results, in Győr.
On the other hand, as Népszava writes, Fidesz-backed politicians were able to turn the tide in Baja, Miskolc, Salgótarján, and Eger, and the mayors of Békéscsaba, Debrecen, Esztergom, Sopron, Székesfehárvár, Veszprém, Kecskemét and Zalaegerszeg, among others, supported by Fidesz, won with solid leads.
Viktor Orbán speaking after the elections. Photo: Viktor Orbán / PrtSc from Facebook
The county assembly elections show a somewhat declining Fidesz dominance: although the party won all 19 counties, it showed proportionally worse results than five years previous, Telex also reports.
In the European Parliament elections, Fidesz-KDNP won 11 seats with 44.72 percent of the vote, down 7.5 percentage points from 2019, when they secured almost 52 percent of the popular vote.
Reflecting on Sunday overall, Gábor Török highlighted that “Fidesz has not achieved such a poor result in national elections since 2006, while a ‘non-Fidesz’ party running alone has not done so well since 2006.”
“A new situation has emerged, which will certainly lead, encourage, or force political actors in new directions.”
Péter Magyar and the Tisza Party take the election by storm
One of the biggest winners of the elections was undoubtedly the Tisza Party led by Péter Magyar, which achieved 29.63% in the EP elections (thus gaining 7 seats) and, as seen above, will also be a dominant force in the Budapest Assembly. Based on Sunday’s vote, the party can claim to be the second-strongest player in Hungarian politics, after less than three months of operation.
Photo: Facebook/Péter Magyar
Curiously, at the moment, Magyar’s campaign is as much – and possibly more so for the time being – of a threat to the opposition as it is to Fidesz. Indeed, Telex even titled its analysis of events:
“Péter Magyar has replaced the opposition in three months.”
“One of the big questions of this election,” the site writes, “was whether the Tisza would really succeed in destroying the old opposition and the system of central power. The answer is pretty clear: it has succeeded and it has destroyed it.”
Tisza soundly trounced DK, the other opposition ‘big’, and it seems that the party may be able to break out of the traditional (in the last few years) opposition positions, where many small parties are trying to form coalitions, often on the sole basis of being against Fidesz.
In the long term, this could have a considerable impact on the 2026 elections: if the Tisza Party is able to maintain its dynamism and offer a viable alternative to Fidesz, it could pose a threat to the governing parties. In any case, it is noteworthy, from the point of view of both Fidesz and the opposition, that Tisza has built a party with almost 30% support in a very short time and with a minimal organisational background.
To summarise, Gábor Török writes:
“Both Fidesz and the pre-2024 opposition will have to contend with the challenge posed by Tisza in the period up to 2026, while Tisza can continue to build as the strongest opposition party – almost in the same league as Fidesz.”
Dávid Vitézy, the runner-up in the last Budapest mayoral election, said his team would apply for a recount of votes before Thursday’s appeal deadline.
Vitézy, backed by LMP-Greens and the Association for Budapest with Vitézy, won 47.49 percent (371,143 votes), while incumbent mayor Gergely Karacsony won 47.53 percent (371,467 votes).
Vitézy said on Facebook that the number of invalid votes was “76 times the difference” between his and Karácsony’s votes. He insisted that it was a “democratic minimum” to carry out a recount, and insisted that allegations of the handling of invalid votes had been systematically thwarted. He added that his team would provide evidence.
Vitézy said he would accept the authorities’ decision “whatever the result” and congratulate Karácsony if his victory was officially confirmed.
As we wrote on Monday, Karácsony said that Budapest “will remain a republic and won’t become a publicly traded company.” Details are HERE.
As we wrote earlier, Fidesz-backed Szentkirályi withdraws candidacy for Budapest mayor, details HERE.
Candidates for Budapest mayor have garnered the following percentage of votes with 100.00 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Office announced on Monday:
2. Dávid Vitézy (For Budapest with David Vitezy-LMP-Greens) 47.49 percent (371,143 votes)
3. Dr. András Grundtner (Our Homeland Movement) 4.98 percent (38,943 votes)
Karácsony: Budapest ‘set to remain a republic’
It looks like Budapest “will remain a republic and won’t become a publicly traded company”, Gergely Karácsony, the city’s mayor, said early on Monday.
“There’s still a few percent’s worth of uncertainty, but — though the result is close — it looks like Budapest will remain a republic and won’t become a publicly traded company,” Karacsony, the joint candidate of the Dialogue-Greens, Democratic Coalition and Socialist parties, said at City Hall Park.
He thanked the Budapest residents who voted in the election and those who supported him in fighting the battle he said he was fighting for the city.
Karácsony said he knew there would still be “a bit of see-sawing” before the outcome was made final, but he believed that Budapest would remain a “diverse and free city exercising solidarity”.
Vitézy calls for Budapest mayoral ballots to be recounted
The ballots for Budapest mayor will be recounted, so no final result will be forthcoming in the early hours of Monday, Dávid Vitézy, the candidate of LMP-Greens and the For Budapest with Dávid Vitézy Association said in Budapest after the local and EP elections.
According to the website of the National Election Office, some 22,000 ballots were invalid, hindering both candidates in clinching a convincing majority, Vitezy said.
Vitezy said he had tried to discuss the issue with his main competitor, the incumbent Gergely Karácsony, but couldn’t reach him on the phone.
With 99.26 percent of the vote counted, Vitezy had 47.49 percent of the vote, while Karácsony, the candidate of the Dialogue – Greens-Socialist-Democratic Coalition parties, had 47.52 percent.
Vitézy said the results showed that Budapest had “a vibrant democracy”. He said that although who would end up being mayor was uncertain, the result “is a huge success for us … because it shows that it was worthwhile campaigning with programmes, a vision of Budapest and with issues impacting its inhabitants,” he said.
Vitézy thanked voters for casting their ballots and activists and volunteers for “making Budapest citizens aware that the city can be led better and developed at a faster pace.”
Read also:
Elections in Hungary: the most important happenings, details HERE.
The Metropolitan Election Committee (FVB) announced on Monday that the incumbent mayor of Budapest, Gergely Karácsony, has been elected with 371,466 votes.
The committee said there were 806,142 stamped ballots in ballot boxes of which 24,592 were invalid and 781,550 were valid.
Dávid Vitézy (Dávid Vitézy for Budapest-LMP-Greens) had 371,142 votes, while András Grundtner (Our Homeland Movement) received 38,942 votes.
The committee’s decision is not binding and can be appealed within three days if a breach of the law can be cited. It is then that the National Election Committee would examine new facts and evidence.
Péter Magyar, deputy leader and EP list-leading candidate of the Respect and Freedom (Tisza) party, has said he expected the outcome of Sunday’s elections to demonstrate to Hungarians that Tisza “is the only real challenger to the System of National Cooperation” and the party that would replace the government in 2026.
“Whatever result we achieve will probably be sensational,” Magyarsaid at Tisza’s ballot-watch in Budapest.
“We’ll see Tisza achieve what no opposition party has over the last 14 years, not DK … or its satellite parties,” he added.
Magyar said his party welcomed the high turnout because it considered elections to be “a celebration of democracy”.
Meanwhile, he said his party would file complaints based on reports that ruling Fidesz was “bussing voters to polling stations and buying votes”.
Magyar: Build a party
He said the next task would be to build the party, as there were “many thousands of people” who wanted to join Tisza. The party, he added, would also put together a platform and “conclude a social contract with the Hungarian people”.
Magyar said that unlike Fidesz, which he said had spent “tens of billions in taxpayer money on the campaign and smearing its opponents”, Tisza had funded its campaign from transparent sources. He said they did not collect “micro donations”, and voters could only support Tisza via bank transfer.
Commenting on the local elections, Magyar said it was “strange” that Fidesz had backed David Vitezy, the candidate of Politics Can Be Different (LMP), for Budapest mayor, “when, according to Fidesz’s propaganda, LMP is a pro-war party”. “This means Fidesz is supporting a pro-war mayoral candidate,” he said.
Magyar said he had not voted for either Vitezy or the incumbent mayor, Gergely Karacsony, “because one is the candidate of [Democratic Coalition leader Ferenc] Gyurcsány and the other of Fidesz”. He said that if Tisza won seats in the Budapest municipal assembly, they would work with the mayor on specific issues, but would not take up any formal positions.
Péter Magyar, deputy leader and European parliamentary list leader of the Respect and Freedom (Tisza) party noted the importance of Sunday’s EP and municipal elections and said the vote provided an opportunity for Hungarians “to say stop and no more”.
After casting his ballot in Budapest’s District 12, Magyarsaid his party wanted “a new political regime change”.
Magyar said he expected an election result “which may not be visible from the Moon but from the prime minister’s office”, with “voters sending a strong message to those in power”.
“We will close off the past 20 years,” Péter Magyar said, adding that “it will not be sprint run but rather a mixture of marathon and hurdles.”
At stake at Sunday’s election is if people choose “the past that Viktor Orbán and Ferenc Gyurcsány destroyed … making Hungary the second poorest and the most corrupted country of the European Union,” Magyar said. He insisted that the country had received 40,000 billion (EUR 103m) forints in EU funding during those 20 years, still the state debt had increased by the same amount.
“They have neglected health services and education, and nearly one million of our compatriots now live in Western Europe,” he said. Some 1.5 million people are without daily health care; there are 896 vacant general physician’s practices nationwide and a shortage of 40,000 nurses, Péter Magyar added.
“Tisza is a party for peace; its supporters will vote for real peace and eliminating divisions,” Magyar said, adding that his party would “work to prevent Fidesz from re-introducing mandatory military service and sending further Hungarian troops to areas hit by civil war.”
Concerning the municipal election, Magyar said he had not supported any of the candidates for Budapest mayor because “one is a candidate of Fidesz-oligarchs and the other is of Ferenc Gyurcsány … Tisza has nothing to do with those people.” He also added that his party would cooperate with the winner in Budapest “on actual matters”.
With 98.97% of the votes processed, Karácsony leads by 147 votes. However, due to the high number of invalid votes, a recount is expected very soon.
Karácsony leads
With 94.83% of the votes processed, Karácsony leads – for the first time – by 19 (!) votes.
General Assembly of the Capital partial results
Exciting: Fidesz and the Tisza Party may have 10-10 seats in the General Assembly of Budapest.
Karácsony-Vitézy
It’s a very tight race for the mayoralty in Budapest: Dávid Vitézy leads, but only by 0.5 percentage points over Gergely Karácsony.
First results of EP elections
The first results of the EP elections are in. With 49.30% of the votes processed,
Fidesz is on 43.56% and the Tisza Party on 31.01%. So far, this means 11 and 7 mandates, respectively.
The Democratic Coalition-Socialists-Dialogue for Hungary group is on 8.28% which means 2 mandates. The Our Homeland Party (Mi Hazánk) is the last party to hold a mandate so far, with 6.79% of the votes at half of the votes processed.
Vitézy leads in Budapest
With 13% of votes processed, Dávid Vitézy leads in Budapest.
Péter Márki-Zay to be mayor again in Hódmezővásárhely
Péter Márki-Zay, opposition PM candidate of the 2022 elections, is poised to be the mayor of Hódmezővásárhely for the next 5 years again: at a processing rate of 94.12%, he holds 55.10% of the votes.
First results are in
The first results of the municipal elections are published on the election site. There are districts and municipalities where the processing rate is only 1-2 percent so far, but there are towns where it is much higher, Telex.hu writes.
Counting of postal votes has started
The National Election Committee (NVI) started opening the postal ballots and counting the ballot papers for the European Parliament (EP) elections at 7 PM on Sunday evening. Votes are counted both by machine and by hand.
7 PM: Voting officially closed
Voting officially closes on Sunday evening at 7 PM. However, those who queued up before 7 PM can still cast their vote, so we will have to wait for the first results. According to the National Election Committe, the first results will be announced from 8 PM.
6:30 PM turnout rate
The turnout rate is 56.09% at 6:30 PM, half an hour before polls close.
Turnout rate at 5 PM
More than half of those eligible have voted: 50.69%.
Municipal election results expected from 8 PM
Depending on the processing of the ballot papers, the National Election Committee (NVI) is expected to start publishing the results of the local municipal elections from 8 PM on Sunday evening, MTI reports.
However, the results of the EP elections will not be announced by the NVI until voting closes in Italy at 11 PM.
3 PM turnout: Budapest “woke up”
Budapest voters were not too active before noon. By now, many have gone and cast their votes.
The turnout at 3 PM is 42.04%.
Turnout at 1 PM
The turnout rate is 33.14 percent at 1 PM, still much higher than before.
New York has the highest number of Hungarians voting in the EP elections in the Americas
Due to the time difference, voters who were abroad on election day but are resident in Hungary could vote in the election of Hungarian members of the European Parliament on Saturday, Hungarian time.
In the 22 representations in the Americas, 1,087 out of 1,293 voters turned out at the polls, giving a turnout of 84 percent, the NVI said. In five representations—Brasília, Sao Paulo (Brazil), Montevideo (Uruguay), Ottawa (Canada) and Quito (Ecuador)—all 42 voters on the representation list turned out to vote.
11 AM: Record-breaking participation
Turnout is 22.89% at 11 AM. Since 1998, when participation figures were first published at 11 AM, turnout in local government or EP elections has never been so high.
Participation at 9 AM
Turnout figure at 9 AM is also exceptionally high with 9.98%. According to Telex, in 2019, the national turnout was 7.8% in EP elections and 7.2% in local elections at 9 AM.
High participation in the morning: 7 AM
Photo: MTI/Komka Péter
According to Telex, in Budapest, 1.62 percent of voters, 21,744 people had cast their ballot by 7 AM. Among the counties, the highest turnout at 7 AM was in Tolna county, with 2.47 percent, or 4,331 voters. The lowest turnout was in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén county: 1.53 percent, 7,760 voters.
In the 2004 EP elections, 0.90 percent voted, in the 2009 elections 1.07 percent, ten years ago 0.96 percent and five years ago 1.48 percent by 7 AM.
In the 1998 municipal elections, 0.93 percent of voters cast their ballot by 7 AM, and 0.92 percent in the 2002 elections. In the 2006 municipal elections, 1.12 percent of eligible voters, 0.99 percent in the 2010 elections, 1.06 percent ten years ago and 1.12 percent five years ago voted before 7 AM.
Szijjártó first to vote in Dunakeszi
Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártówas the first voter to cast his ballot in Hungary’s European parliamentary and municipal elections in Dunakeszi, north of Budapest, after polls opened at 6 AM on Sunday morning, the foreign ministry told MTI.
On arriving at the polls, Szijjártó said the vote would have “historic significance and historic stakes”. In its statement, the ministry quoted him as saying “today’s vote will largely determine if in the near future Europe is engulfed in the flames of war or we’ll again be a continent of peace.”
“Those that vote for Fidesz will vote for peace … and contribute to preventing the war in the neighbourhood from spreading and preventing Hungary from becoming another victim of the war,” Szijjártó said. “Hungary has already paid a huge price for a war Hungarians have nothing to do with,” he added.
“It is time to make it clear once and for all that we do not want war, we do not want to live in war and we do not want Europe to be grippled in a war in the years to come,” the minister said.
Orbán continues campaign on Sunday
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has continued his campaign on Sunday, his press chief said. Bertalan Havasi said in a statement that after casting his vote at the European Parliament and local elections on Sunday, Orbán went to Fidesz’s 5th district office and met district mayor Péter Szentgyörgyvölgyi.
Polls open for European parliamentary, local elections
Hungary’s European parliamentary and municipal elections started at 6 AM on Sunday.
Some 7.85 million people are eligible to vote at the municipal elections at 10,119 polling stations across the country until 7 PM.
Nearly as many people can cast their votes for Hungary’s EP representatives at polls in Hungary, and at 147 Hungarian representations abroad, as well as by mail.
More than 216,000 young people will vote for the first time. Fully 29,850 election officers ensure lawfulness of the election process at the polls and in election committees.
The National Election Committee will publish participation figures seven times during the day. Preliminary results of the local election will be published from 8 PM, while the preliminary European results could come out at 11 PM, once voting ends in all European Union members.
Elections held in 3,177 towns and cities
Photo: depositphotos.com
Elections for Hungary’s municipal representatives and Hungarian members of the European Parliament are held at 3,177 towns and cities across Hungary on Sunday.
Three candidates for Budapest mayor and 7,578 candidates in other localities are running in the election. In towns with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants, 33,384 candidates are competing for 14,528 muncipal mandates. In 166 towns and cities with a larger population 6,733 candidates are running for 1,586 mandates in individual constituencies, while there are 6,031 candidates on 640 compensation lists running for mandates to be distributed in line with the number of votes cast on candidates not winning mandates. Fully 1,611 candidates are running for 381 seats in the county assemblies. Budapest’s 10 lists include 319 candidates for 32 mandates in the city assembly.
Some 7,680,000 Hungarians with residence in the country are eligible to vote, as well as 35,000 Hungarians with refugee status, and 137,000 citizens of other European Union members with permanent residency in Hungary. Forty-three thousand voters have requested to vote at a location other than their permanent address in Hungary.
The list of ethnic minority voters includes 345,000 people, 14,000 of whom are running as candidates.
Hungary can delegate 21 representatives to the European Parliament, the whole country considered as a single constituency. Eleven political parties’ election lists have been validated by the National Election Committee – Solution Movement, Politics Can Be Different (LMP)-Greens, Democratic Coalition, Hungarian Socialist Party, Dialogue-Greens, Second Reform Age Party, Everybody’s Hungary People’s Party, Momentum Movement, Fidesz-Hungarian Civic Alliance-Christian Democratic People’s Party, Jobbik-Conservatives, Party of Respect and Freedom (Tisza), Hungarian Two-tailed Dog Party, and Our Homeland Movement.
The party lists will be awarded mandates in proportion with their support if they garner at least 5 percent of the valid votes.
All voting-age Hungarians with a permanent address in Hungary can vote in the EP election, while Hungarian citizens staying abroad on the day of the election could chose from 147 Hungarian representations in 99 countries to cast their ballot. Fully 4,635 citizens of other EU members residing in Hungary have indicated that they would vote for a Hungarian list. Nearly 127,000 Hungarians residing outside the EU can vote by mail.
Fully 52 percent of Budapest voters are supporting Dávid Vitézy, the mayoral candidate of LMP – Greens, while incumbent Gergely Karácsony is supported by 45 percent, a poll published by the Nézőpont Institute has showed.
Vitézy might beat Karácsony?
After Fidesz’s Alexandra Szentkirályi withdrew from the race and endorsed the candidate of LMP on Friday, Nézőpont said that 46 percent of respondents said they expected Karácsony to lose on Sunday, while 42 percent said he would win.
The third candidate, András Grundter of the radical nationalist Our Homeland Movement, is expected to garner some 3 percent, Nézőpont said.
The European Parliament elections and municipal elections will take place on the same day this year in Hungary, on 9 June. Both campaigns are now in their final weeks, and the candidates are increasingly trying to mobilise their voter base and convince the undecided. Foreign citizens with a Hungarian address can also vote in local government elections, and campaigns try to convince them with various methods.
About 137,000 non-Hungarian EU citizens residing in Hungary, and 35,000 refugees and long-term residents can vote in the municipal elections on 9 June, as Indexreported, and there have been several examples in recent weeks of the candidates trying to earn their votes as well.
Letter for Chinese citizens as part of the campaign?
Photo: depositphotos.com
According to the official data of the 2022 census, there are 98,319 foreign citizens living in Budapest, and roughly 15 percent of them are Chinese citizens. Thus, it is not a coincidence that they are the ones whose trust the candidates want to earn the most.
The Fidesz-KDNP coalition party seemingly didn’t want to leave it to chance and took the opportunity to introduce themselves in a letter. As Telex writes, a few days ago, a letter written in Chinese was published, which included, among other things, a photo of the party’s mayoral candidate, Alexandra Szentkirályi, as well as a ballot form filled out as a guide, on which the votes supporting Fidesz were marked with an X in advance.
In the first half of the letter, after a short introduction, Alexandra Szentkirályi talks about how Xi Jinping made a “historic” visit to the country not so long ago, and that friendship with the Chinese people has always been of special importance to Hungarians. She adds that since Fidesz has been the ruling party in Hungary, relations between the two countries have been improving continuously.
The ruling party has always welcomed Chinese friends and businessmen who come to the country, and this will continue to be important to Fidesz in the future. According to the mayoral candidate, citizens will be protected from criminals, public places will be kept clean, and the renovation of residential buildings will be supported.
Posters in the city of Debrecen
RTL previously reported that there were posters in Chinese that looked like they belonged to the Fidesz party in Debrecen. They show a photo of the mayor of Debrecen, László Papp, with Chinese characters written below. The posters were also discussed on a Reddit forum, where users wrote that traditional Taiwanese characters can be seen on them, which – given the current Sino-Hungarian relations – would be a brave stance on the part of Fidesz. However, the origin and purpose of the posters are still unknown.
Foreign candidates in Hungary
Interestingly, there are several Hungarian settlements where, based on the large percentage of foreigners, a foreign mayor may be elected. For example, 70 percent of Rajka citizens are Slovakians, as well as 25 percent of Dunakiliti and Bezenye, G7 reports. Thus, the village may elect a Slovakian mayor in the 9 June municipal elections. Rajka’s case is considered exceptional, but not entirely unique: as said earlier, a quarter of Dunakiliti and Bezenye are already foreign citizens, a tenth of Hegyeshalom and Dunasziget, but even in the much larger town of Mosonmagyaróvár, 4.5 percent of the population are not Hungarian citizens.
There are politicians in Hungary who have non-Hungarian ancestors too. One of the eleven candidates of the European Parliamentary elections, Marietta Le is of Vietnamese origin, as her father is from said country. Even though her Vietnamese heritage is really important to her, as she told HVG, the Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog Party’s campaign, which she is the list leader of, does not extend to persuading foreigners, they rather believe in the power of communities. She was the founder of jarokelo.hu, which is a platform where people can report problems with pedestrian crossings, missing trash cans, and potholes, and thus they can participate in shaping their local environment.
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Hungarian state TV has first election debate in 18 years – Read here
Candidates of five political parties in the Budapest municipal election set for June 9 participated in a debate hosted by commercial television channel ATV late on Sunday and presented their proposals for the capital’s development.
The debate was attended by Krisztina Baranyi, incumbent mayor of District 9 and the Budapest list leader of the satirical Two-Tailed Dog party, András Grundtner, list leader of radical nationalist Mi Hazánk, incumbent Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony, list leader of the Párbeszéd-Greens-DK-Socialists alliance, Tamás Soproni, mayor of District 6 and second on the list of Momentum, as well as Dávid Vitézy, list leader of the With Dávid Vitézy Association for Budapest and a politician backed by the LMP party.
ATV said Alexandra Szentkirályi, the list leader of the ruling Fidesz-Christian Democrat alliance, and Péter Magyar of the Tisza Party had declined to attend.
Baranyi
In the debate, focusing on traffic developments, making Budapest a more resident-friendly city, and cooperation between the government and the city’s leadership, Baranyi said in local affairs local leaders were need “who will build a community”, adding that “everybody is bored with Hungarian politics” and suggested that her party sought the votes of those people. Concerning traffic developments, she noted the high rate of carcinogenic particles in the air, and called for reducing vehicular traffic. She said she did not agree with centralising parking fee collection in Budapest, as she said it was “a hotbed for corruption”. She noted a “housing crisis” in Budapest and said the government should be “forced” to finance plans to build accommodation for students. She also suggested the introduction of subsidies for people facing homelessness, and giving more focus to such vulnerable groups as the victims of domestic violence.
Grundtner
Grundtner said that “though there is no Hungary without Budapest and there is no Budapest without the country … Budapest has become separated from the body of the nation, like a city state … people flee Hungary while foreigners keep settling in” adding that Mi Hazank would prevent “the formation of unliveable ghettos”. Concerning housing, he said his party would scrap taxes on private rental revenues, while universities would not be allowed to increase the number of their students unless they could provide enough capacity in student hostels. He said the city’s leadership should always strive for good relations with the central government to ensure access to subsidies. He also suggested the establishment of a municipal police and noted the importance of action against animal cruelty.
Vitézy
Vitézy said he did not want to be “a party politician … using Budapest as a springboard”. He said his focus was Budapest’s development. He said public transport services between central Budapest and its greater area must be improved, and called for a “fight” for government support to an upgrade of suburban train services and railway developments, developing the tram network and speeding up road renovations. He also argued for centralising the parking fee collection system. Concerning the city’s relationship with the government, Vitézy said “continuous fussing” with the government “led nowhere” and criticised Karacsony for “getting involving in national politics rather than promoting the interests of Budapest residents”. On the subject of the environment, he called for “preparing Budapest for climate change” through enlarging its parks. He also called for the development of an animal protection system. He called for efforts to make the city and its transport cleaner and said that in the city’s “rust belt” areas, 10,000 housing units could be constructed using private investments.
Karácsony
Karácsony said “those that have not turned up at the debate have sent the clear message of having nothing to say for the people of Budapest”. The mayor said he would work for “an even greener Budapest with more solidarity for needy residents”. He said the city called for cleaner air and affordable rental housing. In the next cycle, he said, the city would spend a total 56 billion forints in EU funding for increasing green areas under his leadership. He said the municipal leadership “must work to ensure a longer, more complete and healthier life for residents”. Karácsony noted that life expectancy in Budapest was 5 years lower than in other capitals of Europe. He insisted that in the past five years, Budapest had seen “the largest outpatient service development” in its history and said he wanted to continue in that spirit. He also stressed that health institutions should be kept under the control of district governments rather than centralised. Budapest is a “free, loyal and diverse European city … while the government represents the opposite of all that, which does not make cooperation easy.” He added, however, that he was willing to cooperate “with anyone” but he would not give up his principles.
Soproni
Soproni said his party represented progressive and liberal values and was working to ensure transparency, while it was “free of even the shadow of corruption, which cannot be said of all opposition parties.” Concerning transport, he said vehicular traffic should be reduced, and pledged an introduction of all-night metro services. He slammed the government for cutting funds for the city and curbing the rights of districts. Momentum “offers and extended hand” to the government, and will “always promote the interests of residents” in the municipal assembly, he said. He added that his party would support introduction of a traffic jam fee. Soproni also offered his party’s support to Karácsony “in efforts to jointly develop Budapest.”
Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony, the mayoral candidate of opposition Párbeszéd-Greens-DK-MSZP, said late on Friday that his main goal was to improve living standards for Budapest residents, while Dávid Vitézy, the mayoral candidate of opposition LMP and the With Dávid Vitézy Association for Budapest, said Budapest needed developments rather than being used as a battleground for party politics.
Karácsony said he was a politician open to green, left-wing, liberal values, as well as conservative values, adding that Budapest and Hungary should become greener and more equal. He said a starting point for his measures as mayor was the human desire to live a fuller, healthier and longer life.
Vitézysaid he was not a party politician, adding that his programme offered an opportunity to replace the party politics that dominated Budapest. He criticised Karácsony for failing to fulfil his election promises, and using his position as mayor for advancing his own political goals.
Karácsony said that the coronavirus pandemic, the energy crisis and government austerity measures in recent year had taken 365 billion forints from city coffers. He said that despite the poor condition of roads, the public transport system in Budapest had developed dynamically, and he called the rollout of a combined public transport pass “of historic importance”.
For those understanding Hungarian, here is the full debate:
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PM’s daughter Ráhel Orbán would like to see more luxury stores in Hungary – Read more HERE
For the 2024 European Parliament elections, K-Monitor has prepared an application called Voksmonitor, which you can access at the website of Voksmonitor.
The aim of the application is to match users’ answers to various political questions to the parties standing in the elections, thereby helping voters to understand the parties’ positions on important policy issues. The forty questions compiled by K-Monitor were completed by all parties with real political activity on the list except Fidesz-KDNP, including TISZA. In the case of the governing parties, their communications and the measures they have taken were used as a basis for the answers.
The issues presented by the application include the attitude to the war in Ukraine, the extension of the EU’s powers, possible exit from the EU, the issue of active euthanasia and the rule of law procedure against Hungary.
Ukraine-Hungary negotiations. Photo: FB/Szijjártó
The positions of the respondent and the candidates can be compared, and Voksmonitorcalculates how much the respondent agrees with the candidates’ positions after completing the questionnaire. The results also include the justification and additional information provided by the parties, giving an even more in-depth insight into their views on the issue.
HEREyou may start filling it out. HEREyou can find Voksmonitor’s similar questionnaire about the Budapest mayoral election. Finally, HEREis their questionnaire about Debrecen, but, unfortunately, it is accessible only in English.
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Hungarian state TV has first election debate in 18 years – Read more HERE
Alexandra Szentkirályi, the ruling Fidesz party’s candidate for mayor of Budapest, has said she believes in Budapest and is ready to fight for the city. “I am preparing for a job that calls for rolling up my sleeves,” she said in an interview published by weekly Mandiner on Thursday.
“I am a politician focused on discipline,” Szentkirályisaid, adding that “we have a clear vision of what kind of a city we would like to see as the nation’s capital.”
“Budapest is the centre of all Hungarians in terms of culture and is of special significance in terms of its economic strength.”
She said that while the Fidesz-led government had carried out several development projects in the capital, including City Park, the State Opera House, the National Dance Theatre and the completion of the fourth metro line, “all the left has done was present visions about power, being unable to look beyond their own interests”.
Szentkirályi slams incumbent mayor
Szentkirályi criticised Gergely Karácsony, the incumbent mayor, describing him as a “controversial politician”, who she said had found “an enemy in the government that offered its cooperation which the mayor rarely accepted”.
“The problem is with his approach, not the opportunities,” Szentkirályi said, arguing that Karacsony had failed to deliver on 75 percent of the long-term programme goals he announced after being elected in 2019.
The city’s current leadership “benefits only the camp of [opposition DK leader] Ferenc Gyurcsány,” the Fidesz candidate said, adding, however, that “we would fill municipal posts with experienced and hard-working professionals instead of failed politicians”.
She said that if elected mayor, she would promote further developing the city’s public transport and parking systems with a view to reducing car traffic as well as handle the issue of homelessness “in a humane but pro-order manner”.
Szentkirályi pledged to double resources aimed at keeping the city’s public places clean and set up a system of city caretakers.
In a broader context, she said that “similarly to Europe, Budapest is a battleground of globalists and sovereigntists”.
“The Hungarian dollar left is practically getting paid and commanded by the globalist centre in Brussels,” Szentkirályi said, insisting that “this is why it is clear to me that the EP and municipal elections are closely related”.
Fidesz MEP Balázs Hidvéghi has said opposition Democratic Coalition leader Ferenc Gyurcsány and Gergely Karácsony, the leftist mayor of Budapest, were planning “to let LGBTQ activists loose on children”.
He said the politicians had made a clear statement in support of “gender ideology”. In a video statement uploaded to Facebook on Thursday, the Fidesz MEP said the leftist politicians wanted to make LGBTQ education “mandatory for Hungarian children”, adding that this was clear from a statement they made yesterday.
“They would let Soros organisations and LGBTQ activists into Hungarian schools,” he said, citing “vomit-inducing activities in western Europe” seen for years on the television bulletins.
Hidvéghi accused the left wing of attacking parts of the Fundamental Law that protect the traditional family model, saying that Karacsony and his ilk did not regard “the father as a man or the mother as a woman”.
Speaker Kövér: EP’s make-up to influence world politics
The make-up of the European Parliament following the June 9 elections may shift global politics in a “pro-peace” direction, László Kövér, the speaker of parliament, said on Thursday in northern Hungary.
Referring to the concurrent local election campaign in Hungary, he said the focus was on the European election given its national, European and world political significance, adding that the make-up of the EP would have a bearing on the whole European institutional system.
He said it was “natural that people would rather talk about this than who their district candidate is, though I wouldn’t underestimate the importance of this either,” he said in comments to MTI.
More people were likely to vote in the June 9 vote as the two ballots were linked, he added.
Kövér said Fidesz MEPs had been on the defensive in relation to EU institutions and the left wing, which had tried to undermine the Hungarian government’s “well-intentioned measures” and its support, resorting to “illegitimate interventions”.
Leftists do not like their country, Kövér believes
He lamented that far less energy and time had been devoted to Europe-building than in previous cycles.
Regarding the local elections, the speaker said it would be worth assessing how respective right and left-wing party political city mayors had performed over the past thirty years and how given settlements had developed.
Budapest he noted as an example of a city where the left wing took over from a Fidesz metropolitan administration in 2019, adding that financial reserves had been squandered ever since and “nothing was built”.
Gergely Karácsony, Budapest’s mayor, rather than campaigning in Budapest, was helping the left-wing campaign in rural areas, he said.
“They don’t like their country and they don’t like their own community either; no surprise there,” he said.
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Does Budapest mayor Karácsony want to ban cars older than 10 years out of Budapest? – Read more HERE
On Thursday, Alexandra Szentkirályi, Fidesz’s candidate for mayor in Budapest, wrote on her social media page that Mayor Gergely Karácsony and the new head of the Climate Agency, Ada Ámon, would ban cars older than ten years from the streets of Budapest. Karácsony reacted to the claim and responded to questions on Facebook.
Does Karácsony really want to ban older cars out of Budapest?
Does Budapest mayor Karácsony want to ban cars older than 10 years out of the city? The answer is a short one. Photo: Daily News Hungary
According to Szentkirályi, the head of the Climate Agency spoke in a podcast about the feasibility of banning cars over ten years old from Budapest, thus helping to create zero-emission zones, Index writes.
In a video published on her Facebook page on Thursday, Alexandra Szentkirályi said that according to the Ministry of Interior, there are currently 440,000 cars older than ten years on the streets of the capital. That is 61 percent of all cars in Budapest.
In a comment on his social media page, Gergely Karácsony was asked, “what is true out of this?”. The major provided a short but to-the-point answer:
Nothing.
The head of the Climate Agency also respondedto Szentkirályi’s comments. According to Ada Ámon, she never said what Szentkirályi claims, and assessed the video of the candidate for mayor as the latest product of Fidesz propaganda.
Over the last 14 years, the government headed by Viktor Orbán has pulled country downwards, Klára Dobrev, the top-ranked MEP joint candidate for the opposition Democratic Coalition, the Socialists and Párbeszéd said at a campaign stop in Salgótarján, in northern Hungary, on Monday.
Gergely Karácsony, the mayor of Budapest, and Kata Tüttő, also an MEP candidate, also addressed the event.
Dobrev said the Baltics, Poland, Czechia and Slovakia had all overtaken Hungary, and some locals in the south even commuted to work in Romania because they received higher wages and even travelled there to see a doctor. She added that Bulgaria would also gradually “overtake” Hungary.
Dobrev said a good outcome for the opposition in the EP and local council elections would enable the opposition to call for an early general election.
