Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister, has failed to convince a majority of his population to vote in a referendum on closing the door to refugees. Though more than 98% of those who voted sided with Orbán, more than half of the electorate stayed at home rendering the process constitutionally null and void.
Orbán himself put a positive spin on the low turnout. He argued that while “a valid [referendum] is always better than an invalid [referendum]” the extremely high proportion of no-voters still gave him a mandate to go to Brussels next week “to ensure that we should not be forced to accept in Hungary people we don’t want to live with”.
The refugee referendum was an attempt to build support for this vision and Orbán hoped that a strong turnout would lead to a series of copycat votes across the continent. But despite the biggest and most divisive advertising campaign in Hungarian history, Orbán failed to entice enough voters to the ballot box.
How do you feel about the result and how did you vote in the referendum? Why do you think so many people decided not to vote?
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