Fidesz Wins the 2022 Parliamentary Elections

Fidesz-KDNP has won the 2022 Hungarian parliamentary elections, as previously reported in our live blog of yesterday’s events.

Telex summarizes the main takeaways of the election:

• With more than 99% of the vote counted so far, the National Election Office (NVI) calculates that Fidesz-KDNP will get 135 mandates in the 199-seat National Assembly, while democratic opposition United for Hungary will have 56 and far-right party Our Homeland will get 7 seats. One seat was also won by a representative of Hungary’s ethnic German national minority.

• In his victory speech, Viktor Orbán (pictured) spoke of a “victory so great that it could even be seen from the moon.”

• Péter Márki-Zay, the united opposition’s candidate for prime minister, claimed that a significant portion of the population was exposed to only propaganda and brainwashing. But opposition leaders Péter Jakab and Ferenc Gyurcsány both offered criticism of their prime ministerial candidate.

• Our Homeland performed well in districts that were former Jobbik strongholds. The party did not manage to weaken Fidesz at all in rural areas, but it did weaken the united opposition.

• The Democratic Coalition (DK) is likely to form the largest parliamentary group in the democratic opposition. Momentum surpassed both Jobbik and MSZP.

• Former LMP politician Bernadett Szél lost her bid against State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Tamás Menczer in the district around Budakeszi, and will not be a part of the new Parliament.

• A few races are still too close to call. The tightest margin is in Budapest’s 13th electoral district, where Fidesz’s Kristóf Szatmáry leads united opposition candidate Zoltán Vajda by a mere 38 votes.

• The government’s “child protection” referendum was declared invalid.

[Telex][Photo: Viktor Orbán / Facebook]