On Sunday, April 3rd, Hungarian voters will go to the polls. This will be the third time Viktor Orban faces the voters as Prime Minister, though he has led a party in every election since 1990, which makes this his eighth go-around over 32-years. The general consensus is that he is strongly favored to win reelection. This consensus is partially based on misunderstandings about the nature of the Hungarian regime and extent to which it is authoritarian, as well as the old atropism that no news is good news, at least for an incumbent government. Ultimately, the consensus is correct, but not because of Orban skewing the playing field, but quite simply because Orban has always been favored. The decision of the opposition to unify was a neccisary but not a sufficient condition to defeat Orban’s Fidesz.
Why? Well Orban’s critics are quick to point to electoral reforms introduced after Fidesz won a two-thirds majority in 2010. These included reducing the number of seats to 199 from 386, and to redraw single-member constituency boundaries. While this gerrymandering without a doubt skewed the playing field in favor of Fidesz, it is worth noting that this does not make an opposition impossible. It does, however, mean that the opposition would likely have to win by a comfortable margin, say 4-6% before they overtook Fidesz. And current polls are not optimistic about that prospect.
It is of course true that pollsters in Hungary are no more neutral than much of the media. Which is why skepticism is rightfully in order about the extent of Fidesz’s lead. I am personally skeptical of polls showing Fidesz with a lead in the high-single digits, much less above 10%, but that is because Fidesz’s support has followed a very narrow range since 2010. Fidesz and its KDNP satellite won 52.73% in 2010, 44.87% in 2014, and 49.27% in 2018. It won 51.41% in the 2014 local elections and 54.46% in the 2019 ones. Assuming a standard overperformance between local and national elections, that result would put Fidesz’s support around 48.9% in 2019, which is remarkably close to the 49.27% the party in fact won in 2018.
In fact, Fidesz’s support and opposition is remarkably stable. This is one reason why the opposition was able to make substantial gains in the 2019 local elections from 2014, including taking control of Budapest despite Fidesz doing better and the Opposition worse in terms of votes cast than four years previously merely by uniting. That is also why uniting, as the Opposition has done for the 2022 elections was a vital prerequisite for having any chance of victory and will almost certainly ensure gains. And that is what pollsters are projecting.
The problem is that there is a difference between making gains relative to a divided opposition vote, and actually winning. The latter requires getting more votes than Fidesz. Here is where the stability comes into play. While Fidesz’s support has fluctuated since 2010, with a low point around 2014, it has bounced back since then and seems to have stabilized around 50%. The extent to which the electoral system is skewed is exaggerated. Budapest was heavily gerrymandered as well, allowing Fidesz to win a 20/33 majority in the Assembly in 2014 , but that did not stop the opposition from winning a 18/33 majority in 2019. Key to that was a united Opposition. However, Fidesz’s own support in Budapest fell from 49% to 44% while that of the Opposition list rose from 36% to 51%. Had Fidesz held its own support, and the Opposition merely consolidated leading to, say, a 49%-49% result Fidesz might well have held a narrow majority.
What is happening nationally is the first of those factors present in Budapest, namely a single-opposition list being formed, is present, but not the latter, a fall in support for Fidesz from 2018’s 50% to around 44-45%. Instead, Fidesz looks likely to win somewhere between 48% and 51% and the opposition between 46% and 50%. That range might be enough to produce a toss-up in a pure PR system, but when combined with the gerrymandering and the concentration of opposition support in Budapest, even the extreme ends of that range, say a 50%-48% Opposition lead, likely still leaves Fidesz with 106-109 seats out of 199.
Furthermore, this stability is not new. Fidesz support has been well above 45% since at least 2016. The one exception was a brief drop during Covid. Hungary has had one of the highest death rates in the world, with nearly one in 200 dying according to official figures. However, Covid seems to have faded as an issue, and while the opposition has tried to use Ukraine as a wedge, citing Orban’s close ties with Russia’s Putin, so far this seems not to have worked. Orban’s greatest weakness was always the fear his actions would cost Hungary EU membership/funds. The Russian invasion has, if anything, dispelled these fears. The mass influx of refugees has made any effort by Brussels to maintain a blockade on EU funds impossible. The EU money now flowing into Budapest is a much stronger signal to Hungarian voters that Brussels is not going to evict them than any signs of displeasure with Orban, even when they come from his erstwhile allies in Poland’s Law and Justice.
Is it Futile?
So does this mean Orban cannot be defeated? The opposition united afterall and it will not be enough?
That would be the wrong conclusion to draw. Removing Orban was always likely to be a multi-step process. Providing an alternative, and then waiting for voters to decide they wanted one. There are some analogies with the situation in Malaysia in 2013 and 2018. In 2013 the opposition united and actually won the popular vote by a narrow margin against the longtime ruling party, but came up short with only a little over 40% of the seats. If the above projections are correct, the 79/199 seats is almost the exact same proportion the opposition in Malaysia won in 2013 against the alliance which had ruled since independence.
The pressure of the challenge, and internal divisions eventually led to the collapse and defeat of the BN in 2018. The key test will be whether after this election the United Opposition can remain united. If so, then it transforms Orban’s approach to government. Because there will be an alternative.