6 April 2014 (2014-04-06) next → 17 May 2003 14 January 2014 Start date April 6, 2014 | Turnout 61.73% 2,264,780 1,290,806 | |
 | ||
263 seats, 52.73% 59 seats, 19.30%
(MSZP only) 133 / 199
Fidesz 117, KDNP 16 38 / 199
MSZP 29, Others 9 Winner Viktor Orbán | ||
The 2014 Hungarian parliamentary election took place on 6 April 2014. This parliamentary election was the 7th since the 1990 first multi-party election. The result was a victory for the Fidesz–KDNP alliance, preserving its two-thirds majority, with Viktor Orbán remaining Prime Minister. It was the first election under the new Constitution of Hungary which came into force on 1 January 2012. The new electoral law also entered into force that day. For the first time since Hungary's transition to democracy, the election had a single round. The voters elected 199 MPs instead of the previous 386 lawmakers.
Contents
Background
After the 2010 parliamentary election, Fidesz won a landslide victory, with Viktor Orbán being elected as Prime Minister. As a result of this election, his government was able to alter the National Constitution, as he garnered a two thirds majority. The government was able to write a constitutional article that favored traditional marriages, as well as one that lowered the number of MPs elected from 386 to 199.
Orbán and his government remained relatively popular in the months leading to the election. This was largely because of high GDP growth, increased industrial output, and a growth in the tourism sector.
Individual candidates
The National Election Office announced that a total of 2,304 candidates submitted the required number of nominations for the parliamentary election by the 3 p.m. deadline on 4 March. The candidacy of 1,531 people was accepted after completion of the registration process. The following table contains a selected list of numbers of individual candidates by county representation and party affiliation:
National lists
Under the new election law, parties which ran individual candidates in at least 27 constituencies in Budapest and at least nine counties had the opportunity to set up a national list. On 21 February 2014, the National Election Committee (NVB) registered at first the joint list of the governing Fidesz–KDNP party alliance, led by PM Viktor Orbán and KDNP president Zsolt Semjén.
Eighteen national party lists were registered up to 8 March 2014, when the National Election Office (NVI) approved the following 14 organizations (parties and electoral alliances), in addition to the parliamentary parties (Fidesz–KDNP, Unity, Jobbik and LMP), which had already successfully registered: Homeland Not For Sale Movement Party (HNEM), the communist Hungarian Workers' Party, Party for a Fit and Healthy Hungary (SEM), Andor Schmuck's Social Democratic Civic Party (Soc Dems), the former long-time parliamentary party Independent Smallholders, Agrarian Workers and Civic Party (FKGP), former House Speaker and Socialist party member Katalin Szili's Community for Social Justice People's Party (KTI), Gypsy Party of Hungary (MCP), Party of Greens (Greens), New Dimension Party (ÚDP), New Hungary Party (ÚMP), Together 2014 Party, Democratic Community of Welfare and Freedom (JESZ), Unity Party (ÖP) and Alliance of Mária Seres (SMS). The following table contains only the incumbent parliamentary parties' national lists (first 20 members), which could won mandates:
Minority lists
Under the election law, the thirteen officially recognized national minorities are entitled to send minority spokespersons (Hungarian: nemzetiségi szószólók) to the National Assembly. They have the same rights as other parliamentarians to address the parliament, but are not entitled to vote. However the minorities could also each set up national lists. If any such national list reached the 5% electoral threshold from minority votes, this would entitle them to full-fledged representatives.
The Polish minority list was the first minority list to be successfully registered by the National Election Committee (NVB), on 25 February 2014. Two days later, on 27 February, the NVB registered three other national lists: those for the German, Rusyn and Serb minorities, and then approved the lists of Armenians and Romanians on 1 March, Bulgarians and Slovaks on 3 March, Croats, Ukrainians and Romani people on 4 March, and, finally, Greeks and Slovenes on 7 March.
The officially recognized minority self-government organizations received a total of 298.5 million Ft (EUR 954,000) of public support for campaign activity. The National Roma Council was awarded a significant portion of the funds – altogether 101 million forints – while the Bulgarians granted the lowest amount (8.4 million), according to official demographic ratios.
Opinion polls
Methodological note: The Hungarian pollsters generally release separate data on the support of political parties among all eligible voters (which tends to include a high percentage for "don't know/no preference"), and on the support of political parties among "active" or "certain" voters. The table below refers to the latter data.
Domestic
Fidesz's leader Viktor Orbán celebrated in Budapest with thousands of supporters in the evening and said that Hungary was on the threshold of a "new and wonderful epoch".
Jobbik leader Gábor Vona said that the party is now the "strongest national radical party" in the EU, as well as Hungary’s second largest political party". Jobbik continuously increases it popularity and ahead of the European parliament elections it is important to make this clear. [Yet even though] we outperformed pollsters’ expectations, but we were not able to achieve the goal we set for ourselves of winning the elections".
One of the five party alliance's leaders, Gordon Bajnai, said the result was a "crushing defeat" and a "great disappointment" for those who wanted change.
International
The Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights Limited Election Observation Mission found that the elections were "efficiently administered and offered voters a diverse choice following an inclusive candidate registration process" but that Fidesz "enjoyed an undue advantage because of restrictive campaign regulations, biased media coverage and campaign activities that blurred the separation between political party and the State".