Hungary - 2014 Election
On 18 January 2014 President János Áder called parliamentary elections for 6 April. A new electoral system applied for these elections. Voters will elect 106 members from single-member constituencies under a one-round majoritarian system and the remaining 93 members under a nationwide proportional system. Five parties are represented in the outgoing parliament, with the Coalition of Hungarian Civic Union (Fidesz) and the Christian-Democratic People's Party having obtained a two-thirds majority that allowed for the adoption of a new Constitution and the revision of a great number of cardinal laws, including election-related legislation, without opposition support.
A number of observers expressed concerns about the rapid and comprehensive nature of legal reform in the past years, as well as a lack of consultation and inclusivity in the process. Interlocutors also alleged that these legislative changes were negatively impacted upon by a lack of political pluralism and they undermine the separation of powers. Observers referred to the upcoming elections as a test case for the new legal framework.
Critics charged that the 2014 parliamentary elections “will be free, but they won’t be fair.” Kim Lane Scheppele of Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Studies noted "The whole election framework – the laws, the institutions and even the new electorate – favors Fidesz because the governing party has used its four years in office with its two-thirds majority in the parliament to redesign every aspect of the electoral system to its advantage. ... Under the new election framework, the allied opposition parties cannot win a parliamentary majority, even if they gain more votes than the governing party. Simultaneously, the changes also make it nearly inevitable that the governing party will keep its two-thirds parliamentary majority even if it gets less than half of the overall vote."
But Zoltán Csipke observed "The criticisms against Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán are numerous and many deserved (the rubber stamp nature of the parliamentary majority, autocratic tendencies and lucrative contracts won by close allies, not to mention unpredictable economic policy), but what is overlooked, deliberately or not, is that the Hungarian population does not see a viable alternative. When the parties of the Left formed a common parliamentary list in January called the Unity Alliance, the names at the top were all too familiar... Politicians of the leftist stripe can at least take solace in the fact that after eight years of Fidesz, they may well find themselves in the position as the current government did in 2010 when all they had to do to win was show up and avoid saying anything concrete. Fortunate for them, but unfortunate for Hungary."
Surveys predicted a landslide victory for PM Viktor Orban’s party, who led the country out of the crisis and resisted Brussels’ influence. With 47 percent of the population supporting him, the party’s rallying cry of ‘four more years’ may prove accurate, according to the recent opinion polls, led by the Median Opinion Center. The only question is whether Fidesz can still retain two-thirds majority in the country’s parliament. The opposition Socialist Party (MSZP) scored 23 percent in the survey, while the right-wing Jobbik garnered 21 percent. The Jobbik party was trying to shed its far-right image and appeal to a younger audience. The party, which states its main goal is protecting "Hungarian values and interests," has been accused of anti-Semitism, racism, and homophobia.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban won another four-year term in the parliamentary election which also saw gains by the far right. Orban's Fidesz Party and its allied Christian Democrats ended up with 133 seats in the 199 seat parliament. The right-wing Jobbik Party was expected to control at least 23 seats -- a gain from the last parliament.
Attila Mesterhazy resigned as Socialist Party leader and parliamentary group leader on 29 May 2014. He said he would not compete for the post of party leader in the upcoming re-election of officials. Mesterhazy said he assumed full responsibility for his party’s crushing defeats in the general election on April 6 and the European elections on May 25.
Despite a 10 percentage point drop in support, according to the latest opinion poll by Szazadveg, by December 2014 Fidesz' 25 percent backing still eclipsed that of the far-right Jobbik, which had 14 percent, and the Socialists with 11 percent.
A delegation of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) observed the elections. In its final report, the delegation concluded, while the elections were efficiently administered and offered voters a diverse choice following an inclusive candidate registration process, “the main governing party 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.” The report listed a number of key legislative changes since 2010 that were enacted using procedures that lacked public consultation and which negatively affected the electoral process and removed important checks and balances. While noting the creation of more equal-size constituencies, it stated the redistricting process was widely criticized “for lacking transparency, independence and consultation, and allegations of gerrymandering were widespread.”
The ODIHR report also observed several problems with media in the elections, including the increasing ownership of media outlets by business persons directly or indirectly associated with Fidesz and the allocation of state advertising to select media outlets. The report concluded these factors undermined the pluralism of the media market and increased self-censorship among journalists. The report also criticized the use of government advertisements that were almost identical to those of Fidesz campaign ads, claiming they contributed to an uneven playing field and did not fully respect the principle of separation of party and state. The ODIHR mission noted the limited amount of free airtime for candidates and the absence of paid political advertisements on nationwide commercial television and concluded this impeded electoral candidates’ ability to campaign via the media.
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