Seven Parties Form National Candidate Lists for Election

Seven political parties were able to submit a national list of candidates to the National Election Commission (NVB) by the 4:00pm deadline on Saturday for the parliamentary elections, and every ethnic national self-government except for the Roma Self-Government managed to set up a national list as well.

In Hungary’s current two-ballot voting system, 106 parliamentary seats from single-member districts are voted on in the first ballot, and 93 seats are allocated from individual parties and minority self-governments on the second ballot.

Each organization’s list reflects the candidates it will send to Parliament based on the number of seats it wins on the second ballot. For example, if the United for Hungary opposition coalition manages to win 45 seats on the second ballot, the first 45 names on its list will automatically gain mandates in the new parliamentary session.

Our Homeland was the first to set up a national list with the NVB, but another six parties or party coalitions were able to make the Saturday deadline as well.

The DK-Jobbik-Momentum-MSZP-LMP-Dialogue (United for Hungary) coaltion submitted its list on Friday, while Fidesz-KDNP, the Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog Party, György Gattyán’s Solution Movement, and György Gődény’s Party of Normal Life handed their lists in on Saturday. The other party that managed to form a national list is the little-known IMA – Our Party.

However, these results were not yet official as of late Saturday evening, as the endorsement signatures still had to be checked to guarantee that each organization is able to get a minimum of 71 candidates from 14 counties (or the capital city) onto the first ballot in order to qualify for the second ballot.

NVB approved the DK-Jobbik-Momentum-MSZP-LMP-Dialogue coalition, Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog Party, and Fidesz-KDNP coalition on Saturday afternoon, and were expected to rule on the Solution Movement, Party of Normal Life, and IMA – Our Party on Sunday.

In the last parliamentary elections four years ago, 40 party lists were announced, but “only” 23 parties appeared on the ballot.

All of the nationality self-governments managed to create national lists in the last election, but this year the National Roma Self-Government wasn’t able to decide on its candidate list by the January 31 deadline and so couldn’t form a national list for the April 3 elections. All other ethnic minority self-governments set up national lists this year, which have already been approved by NVB.

On Saturday afternoon, the agency held a drawing for the order of the lists on the ballot (subject to each party’s final approval by NVB).

Based on the drawing, the order of party and nationality lists on the ballot will be the following (with political parties in bold):

1. DK– Jobbik – Momentum – MSZP – LMP – Dialogue
2. National Armenian Self-Government
3. National Self-Government of Romanians in Hungary
4. Party of Normal Life
5. Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog Party
6. National Croatian Self-Government
7. Solution Movement
8. National Ukrainian Self-Government
9. IMA – Our Party
10. National Ruthenian Self-Government
11. National Slovak Self-Government
12. Our Country Movement
13. National Bulgarian Self-Government
14. National Polish Self-Government
15. National Slovenian Self-Government
16. National Self-Government of Germans in Hungary
17. National Serbian Self-Government
18. Fidesz-Hungarian Civic Association-Christian Democratic People’s Party
19. National Self-Government of Greeks in Hungary.

[Magyar Hang]