Viktor Orbán has declared victory, after near-complete results showed a crushing win for his rightwing coalition.
The three-time prime minister is expected to win a super-majority, with preliminary results showing that his Fidesz-KDNP alliance on course to win 133 seats, out of 199.
In a brief speech to supporters, Orbán said it was a decisive victory
We created the opportunity to defend Hungary. A great battle is behind us. We have achieved a decisive victory.
Orbán headed a Fidesz-led coalition government during 1998-2002 before returning to power in 2010.
Opposition parties were left disappointed, after a high turnout failed to favour them. Gábor Vona of the far-right Jobbik party, which came in second place, announced he would resign on Monday. Gergely Karácsony, leader of the Socialist and Dialogue parties, voiced satisfaction with the high turnout, but said his party needed to learn lessons.
That’s all for the live blog for today. You can read our latest story here. Good night and thank you for following.
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Far-right leaders congratulate Orban
Messages of congratulations have come from Geert Wilders, the leader of the Dutch Freedom party, as well as a leading member of Germany’s Alternative for Deutschland.
Congratulations Viktor Orbán with this excellent result.
— Geert Wilders (@geertwilderspvv) April 8, 2018
A well deserved victory! #hungaryelections #HungaryElection2018 #Valasztas2018 pic.twitter.com/BT2t9DqJbp
Beatrix von Storch of the AfD described as a bad day for the EU and a good one for Europe.
Herzlichen Glückwunsch Viktor Orban! Ein schlechter Tag für die #EU, ein guter für #Europa. #Vaterländer #Nationalstaaten #Souveränität #NoMigrantenquoten #KuturelleIdentität pic.twitter.com/U9nAgIDSXI
— Beatrix von Storch (@Beatrix_vStorch) April 8, 2018
France’s far-right leader welcomed the result as a rejection of “the inversion of values and mass immigration promoted by the EU”.
Grande et nette victoire de Viktor Orban en #Hongrie 🇭🇺 : l'inversion des valeurs et l'immigration de masse prônées par l'UE sont à nouveau rejetées.
— Marine Le Pen (@MLP_officiel) April 8, 2018
Les nationaux peuvent être majoritaires en Europe aux prochaines #Européennes2019 ! MLP
Meanwhile analysts suggest the strong result will strengthen Orban’s worldview - and ask whether his EU allies are ready to challenge him
Two-thirds majority or not, the result will give very strong legitimacy to Fidesz & strengthen Orban's resolve that hatemongering works. That's a race to the bottom. #HungaryElections
— Zselyke Csaky (@zecsaky) April 8, 2018
Hungary deals another blow to liberalism, with Fidesz and Jobbik winning 70% of vote. Long past time that leaders who still care about liberalism (Merkel, Macron, Tusk) let their voices be heard, take action and impose real costs
— Ivo Daalder (@IvoHDaalder) April 8, 2018
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The (preliminary) election results in a map
Gergely Karácsony, the defeated Socialist candidate for prime minister, is giving his reaction to his party’s deep defeat.
The result is not what we hoped for, but nevertheless as the losers we must always congratulate the winners. But it is difficult to do that in Hungary.
We are convinced that people believe that Hungary needs change... we accept the fact that today Hungarian voters have made a choice.
He says the Socialist coalition has shown it is a credible force and alternative to Fidesz.
He says he is delighted the majority of voters in Budapest voted for change, but a lot needs to be done to rebuild the party’s foundations.
We have received a certain number of slaps in the face, but we have shown that rebirth is possible.
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Jobbik leader resigns
The leader of the far-right Jobbik, Gábor Vona, has announced he will resign following his party’s defeat.
He says the party behaved cleanly, but concedes he has fallen short of his objective: “Once again Fidesz has sadly won.” He said he would keep his promise to resign if the election was lost and would stand down tomorrow, adding that the party would continue the work it started in 2010 as an opposition force to Fidesz.
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The crowd at the Orbán victory rally is now singing the national anthem.
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Orbán is leading the crowd in song - it is the anthem of the revolution from 1848, Euronews says. He finishes by saying: “Long live Hungary, thank you for everything.”
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Viktor Orbán continues by thanking “all the people who prayed for us and prayed for me personally”. Also on the list of thanks are the party volunteers and his wife.
He says we now have a major battle behind us. “This has been a decisive win... in the future we are going to be able to defend our mother country.”
Orbán claims victory
“We have won.” With these three words Viktor Orbán began to address the crowds outside Fidesz headquarters.
He starts by congratulating the voters for turning out to vote. “Thank you for having placed your faith in us; thank you for having stuck with us.”
Supporters of Viktor Orbán are in a jubilant mood as they await outside Fidesz party headquarters.
Thanks to Euronews, I can tell you the crowd are listening to Roxette’s Listen to Your Heart.
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Here is how Hungary’s parliament will look, based on preliminary results with 75% of votes counted.
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Fidesz-KDNP coalition 134 seats
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Jobbik 26 seats
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Socialists 20 seats
The remaining nine seats go to smaller parties.
And this is from Hungarian journalist, Andras Szabo.
Fidesz predicted to have constitutional 2/3 majority in Parliament again. Jobbik will be the strongest opposition party. Socialists, Democratic Coalition and LMP will also enter Parliament. pic.twitter.com/yBO4hqfVOO
— András Szabó (@AndrasSzab) April 8, 2018
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Shaun Walker is outside Fidesz election HQ, where Viktor Orbán is expected to speak soon.
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Hungarian opposition flounders
With Fidesz predicted to win a supermajority in parliament, it is shaping up to be a bad night for the opposition.
The far-right Jobbik has won 20% of the preliminary result, while the Socialists have got 11.85%.
Viktor Orbán's ruling party projected to win supermajority
The ruling Fidesz party of Viktor Orbán is projected to win 134 seats with 74.6% of votes counted, according to the national election website.
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The first results are finally out and it looks terrible for the opposition and a resounding win for Fidesz. The complicated electoral system means it is hard to tell how many seats in parliament Fidesz will win but it looks like they will certainly have a majority and may even get the two-thirds constitutional majority. A resounding win for Orbán after a day of quiet optimism among some of the opposition.
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Viktor Orbán expected to win
Viktor Orbán is set for a third straight election win, preliminary results show.
Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party received 49.5% of votes on a national party list, according to preliminary results based on 69.1% of votes being counted.
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While we await the results, here is an interesting take from Daniel Hegedüs, a visiting fellow at the German Marshall Fund thinktank.
Irrespective from the outcome of the elections, on April 8 Hungarian politics will enter a new era...
Even if Jobbik and the left-liberal opposition can agree on a short-term political action plan, they will be paralysed by the fact that, given the capture of the state by Fidesz over the last years, all state institutions are controlled by Viktor Orbán’s acolytes. Lacking the required constitutional majority, the opposition cannot reshuffle the institutional settings in accordance with the principle of the rule of law.
You can read the full article here
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Counting is under way...
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We won’t know the preliminary results of these elections for some time, but Hungarian journalists are already assessing the most likely outcomes.
The website Index, citing party data, says that ruling party Fidesz has taken a hit in the capital, but proved to be very popular in the countryside, winning more voters than in 2014.
An official government site, AboutHungary, seems to endorse the analysis. AboutHungary reports Index’s forecasts that Fidesz and its Christian Democratic ally, the KDNP, are expected to win 116 out of 199 seats in Hungary’s national assembly.
Health warning: these are not official results.
First results of #hungarianelections will only be available around 10pm, but preliminary information published by Hungarian news site https://t.co/U2eUrq4kFq shows #Fidesz is going to win big in the countryside, while it is set to lose mandates in the capital and a few cities.
— Viktória Serdült (@sviki1980) April 8, 2018
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Preliminary results delayed
Hungary’s national election office has said it expects to release preliminary results of the election around 11pm local time (10pm BST), later than originally thought.
Hundreds of people have been queuing to vote in Budapest, long past the official poll closing time of 7pm.
The head of the office, Ilona Palffy, told private broadcaster ATV that turnout in two districts had been much higher than anticipated.
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Queues to vote in Budapest
Here are some images of voters in Budapest queuing to cast their votes, after the official closing at 7pm local time (6pm BST).
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The ‘Stop’ poster reveals how Viktor Orbán has put hostility to migrants at the centre of his campaign. The Guardian’s Shaun Walker sums up this aspect of Orbán’s political project.
I arrived in Budapest a month ago and, while Viktor Orbán has been spewing far right rhetoric for several years, as an outsider coming in, the concentration and intensity of the anti-migration message has been shocking.
Orbán speaks in terms that in most countries would be the preserve of extreme rightwing fringe parties, telling Hungarians that “tens of millions” of migrants from Africa and the Middle East are waiting to kick down Hungary’s door and warning that they will bring terror, crime and rape with them.
He has accused the Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros of hatching a plan to destroy Hungary by flooding it with migrants, and Budapest has been plastered with posters decrying Soros for the past year. The most prominent of these shows a grinning Soros with all the opposition politicians, accusing them of being in league in a plot to cut down Orbán’s anti-migrant fence that runs along the country’s southern border.
Shortly before the election, a new poster appeared, this one not even officially a Fidesz campaign poster but simply part of a publicly funded “government information” campaign. It shows the same photograph used in Ukip’s controversial “breaking point” poster and is embossed with one simple word: STOP.
Fed a diet of scare stories about migrants by the government-friendly media, many Hungarians support Orbán on migration. But the Fidesz campaign has centre almost exclusively around the topic. Orbán has hammered home the dangers of migration in almost every speech. It remains to be seen whether a one-issue campaign is enough to win an election. If it is, the big question is where Fidesz goes from there during the next four years, having already ramped up the rhetoric to fever pitch.
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There are still people queuing to cast a vote in Budapest, according to election officials.
Hungary’s national elections office has said it will not announce any preliminary results until all votes are counted, according to the official site abouthungary.hu
The last polling station is expected to close at around 10pm (9pm BST) in Budapest. Anyone who arrived in the queue before the official closing time of 7pm was told they would be able to vote.
Meanwhile, opposition activists are gathering in central Budapest to await those preliminary results.
Opposition supporters gathering in a tent at Parliament in #Budapest. First results are to be published within some minutes. #HungaryElections pic.twitter.com/2vZD3qyuMm
— Balazs Csekö (@balazscseko) April 8, 2018
Elsewhere, an election techno party is under way.
Meanwhile, huge techno election afterparty on Freedom Square, near parliament. #Hungary pic.twitter.com/eIyFaQaZEc
— Lili Bayer (@liliebayer) April 8, 2018
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There is something familiar about one of Viktor Orbán’s election posters, seen here in the town of Gyongyos.
The image shows migrants crossing the Croatian-Slovenian border: mainly men, mainly Syrians and Afghans, searching for a new life in Germany. The picture has been deployed as part of Orbán’s anti-migrant campaign, the main theme of his pre-election rallies.
The same image was used by Ukip in 2016, when the party launched its infamous ‘Breaking Point’ poster during the EU referendum. The Getty photographer who took the image later told the Guardian that Ukip had betrayed the people in the photo.
Hungarian civil society activists have also been mobilising this evening in Budapest.
The Common Country Movement, a group pushing for electoral reform, was holding an election party in front of the Hungarian parliament.
Márton Gulyás, the leader of the Common Country Movement, stopped to talk to the Budapest Beacon’s Benjamin Novak.
Exclusive interview with Márton Gulyás, president of Common Country Movement, one of the significant political activists in Hungary today. His org is holding an election night party next to parliament. But why did they choose this spot? Why are their so many police present? pic.twitter.com/F2hfSoR9eq
— Benjamin Novak (@b_novak) April 8, 2018
Gulyás said the group had chosen to have their event near the parliament because “it is a symbolic place”. He hopes the turnout will be above 70%.
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Here is a despatch from the Guardian’s Shaun Walker, who is at the Fidesz election night HQ on the Danube.
I have just spoke to Orbán’s spokesman Zoltán Kovács. He claimed the high turnout was a sign that “Hungarian democracy is alive and ticking”. He said the two-thirds majority was not a necessary benchmark: “if it’s a convincing majority, that’s going to be enough”. Possibly another sign that Fidesz is managing expectations and does not expect to win the two-thirds constitutional majority.
Meanwhile, there is still a long queue at a polling station in Budapest’s 11th district and the electoral office says no preliminary results will be published until everyone has voted. It could take another hour and a half apparently. All the voters who were in line before the polls closed at 7pm can still vote.
Bulcsú Hunyadi, an analyst at the Political Capital in Budapest, said it was pretty difficult to tell what the higher turnout meant. It has traditionally been seen as a sign that opposition support is up, but there has also been a high turnout in pro-Fidesz rural areas. It also raises the possibility that some of the smaller parties will not make it past the 5% threshold required to get into parliament.
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Polling day is a family affair in many countries and Hungary is no different. Viktor Orbán’s main challengers also showed up with their nearest and dearest.
Gergely Karácsony is the leader of the leftwing alliance of Socialist and Dialogue parties. He thinks higher turnout will favour the opposition.
Gábor Vona, pictured, leads the far-right Jobbik party, which is trying to move away from its roots as a far right, antisemitic party. He has said the shift will bring the party into government, sooner or later.
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A spokesman for Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party has said it is unlikely to get a two-thirds majority. Viktor Orbán’s party won a two-thirds majority in 2010 and 2014, which enabled him to change the constitution. The super-majority was lost in a 2015 byelection defeat.
Going into the poll, most analysts predicted that Fidesz would not get a two-thirds majority, but would keep overall control. The latest forecast came from Gergely Gulyás, Fidesz group leader.
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While we wait for the results, it is worth looking at how Hungary’s electoral system works.
Voters are electing 199 members of parliament in a single round. A total of 106 seats can be won in single-member constituencies in a first-past-the-post system. The remaining 93 seats are awarded under a list system.
Fidesz has changed election rules since 2010, boosting the ruling party’s chances against a fragmented leftwing opposition and the far-right Jobbik party.
Reuters has produced this useful list of the key changes.
- The total number of seats was reduced from 386 to 199 in 2011. District boundaries have been redrawn, and critics say gerrymandering was significant.
- A second voting round was eliminated, denying parties the option of clinching deals between the rounds, which contributed to the splintering of the current opposition.
- The system of voter compensation was changed in favour of winning candidates. In local districts, any vote not used to win a first-past-the-post race is added to national lists, including for the winner.
- Ethnic Hungarians were given the right to citizenship. Some 378,000 new citizens have registered to vote in this election and the majority of them support Fidesz.
- Postal votes were outlawed for hundreds of thousands of Hungarians working abroad, who are not necessarily Fidesz supporters. They can only vote in person at Hungarian embassies or consulates, limiting their ability to participate.
- Parties must field candidates in at least 27 local districts to maintain a national list and receive state support for their campaign, limiting options for parties to cooperate.
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'Election could produce record turnout' - ruling party
Hungary may be heading for its highest-ever voter turnout, according to a spokesman for the ruling party, Fidesz.
Gergely Gulyás, the Fidesz group leader, thanked Hungarians for the high turnout, according to an official website, AboutHungary.hu
Hungarian democracy is strong, this is what the high turnout signals. We thank all those who have voted, this way the next government can have a strong legitimacy.
It may very well be the highest turnout ever. The parliament of Hungary will then be especially strong.
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Here are more reports of the long queues to vote, from correspondents in Budapest.
Politico’s correspondent, Lili Bayer, tells of a heavy police presence.
The Guardian’s Shaun Walker has heard from voters in London, who said the Hungarian embassy was not prepared to deal with the numbers wanting to vote.
I was emailed by a couple of people saying the Hungarian Embassy in London is not geared up to deal with all the voters who want to vote, and this video on index shows just how crazy the line is there - extraordinary https://t.co/2Z4n9il1YA
— Shaun Walker (@shaunwalker7) April 8, 2018
And from Andrew Byrne of the Sunday Times.
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In Budapest, Brussels and London, there have been reports of long queues to vote.
In London some Hungarians have waited two hours to cast their ballot, according to Index.hu, which also reports one three-hour wait at a polling station at a school in Budapest.
Hungary: People queuing to vote in today's Hungarian parliamentary election in Budapest, Brussels and London. High turnout expected. #Választás2018 pic.twitter.com/h7PeVk5SlQ
— Europe Elects (@EuropeElects) April 8, 2018
Viktor Orbán, accompanied by his wife, Aniko Levai, voted this morning in a wealthy neighbourhood in Budapest.
Speaking to journalists, he said he would stand up for Hungary’s interests.
We love our country and we are fighting for our country
Asked if he was fighting the European Union, he said:
The EU is not in Brussels. The EU is in Berlin, in Budapest, in Prague and in Bucharest.
A post on his Facebook page later showed him attending church.
I’ve taken the quotes from Reuters
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Polls close in Hungary
Good evening and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of Hungary’s parliamentary elections, one of the least predictable votes in the country’s recent history.
The outcome matters, not only because Hungary is a European Union member state at the geographic heart of the continent, but because these elections could be decisive for the country’s future direction. During eight years in power the current prime minister, Viktor Orbán has re-written the constitution, tightened control over the media and judiciary and put loyalists in key posts.
Polls have closed, with long lines seen just outside voting stations in Budapest. Election officials have said they will remain open until everyone in the line by the 7pm close (6pm BST) has been able to vote.
My colleague, Shaun Walker, the Guardian’s central and eastern Europe correspondent, has been visiting polling stations in Budapest today.
Here is his assessment of what could happen:
It will be a nervous wait for Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s hardline rightwing prime minister to find out how his Fidesz party has done and whether he will win a third consecutive term as prime minister, after a campaign focused almost exclusively on migration.
The turnout at 3pm was up 8% on the 2014 vote, possibly a good sign for Orbán’s opponents. There are no reliable exit polls in Hungary so we may have to wait a bit before we get a sense of the result.
There are three potential outcomes: either Fidesz keeps the two-thirds parliamentary majority it has enjoyed for the last eight years, which would be a resounding mandate for Orbán’s anti-migrant politics and give him a free hand to continue with legislative and constitutional changes.
Another possibility is Fidesz loses the two-thirds majority but keeps a simple majority, giving Orbán another term as prime minister. Going into the vote, this is what many analysts were predicting.
The final plausible outcome is that the high turnout means opposition gains, which could leave Orbán without a majority in the 199-seat parliament to form a government and would usher in a period of messy coalition dealmaking.
The opposition is split between Jobbik, the former far-right party which has been trying to rebrand itself as a centrist anti-corruption force, and a number of smaller liberal parties. They have been unable to agree on strategically withdrawing candidates to present united fronts against Fidesz in each district, partly because the level of state funding political parties receive is dependent on how many candidates they field. But a number of sites and groups have been set up to advise Hungarians who want a change of government on the best way to vote tactically in each district.
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