Steven N.
Zoltán Vajda was able to flip Budapest’s District XVI and the opposition was also gained an extra seat from the party list, giving the united opposition a total of 57 seats in the new Parliament, compared to 134 for Fidesz.
Absentee ballots from abroad were counted on Saturday and added to the votes cast in last Sunday’s parliamentary elections.
The results showed a reversal of the results in Budapest’s 13th electoral district, where Kristóf Szatmáry of Fidesz was leading opposition candidate Zoltán Vajda (pictured) by only 38 votes. But after the absentee ballots were counted today, Vajda was found to have won the seat after all.
Szatmáry, for his part, acknowledged the defeat and congratulated his opponent. But the Fidesz politician will still be headed to Parliament anyway, as he is in the 15th spot on the party’s national list.
Data published on the National Election Office’s website shows that MSZP’s Ágnes Kunhalmi and DK’s Balázs Barkóczi were also able to hang on to their leads despite close challenges from their respective Fidesz opponents.
Fidesz only managed to capture a single electoral district in Budapest. This was in the capital’s District XVII, where the party’s candidate, Mónika Dunai, triumphed over her opponent György Szilágyi from Jobbik.
Votes from abroad also affected the results of the national lists. The opposition won an extra spot there as well, giving 47 seats to Fidesz from their party list and 38 to the opposition. This means that Momentum’s Dávid Bedő, in the 38th place on the opposition list, will gain a seat in the National Assembly and deprive Imre Pesti on the Fidesz party list of the opportunity.
At present, Fidesz holds a total of 134 seats in the new Parliament, with 57 for the opposition. Our Homeland is third with 7, and a representative of the German national minority will have a single mandate in the new Parliament. 133 MPs are needed for a two-thirds majority in the 199-seat Parliament, so the recently-arrived absentee ballots did not change the balance of power in this respect.
Fidesz ended up receiving 94% of the cross-border mail-in votes, with 4% going to the united opposition.
