Preliminary results from Hungary’s parliamentary elections show Tisza party leading with 138 mandates, while Fidesz secures 54, with a 77.8% voter turnout.
Partial Results and Foreign Vote Count
Vote counting began immediately after 7 PM. No exit polls were conducted within the country.
Votes cast abroad must arrive by Thursday and be tallied by April 18th. A final result may not be known until Saturday if the vote counts for the largest lists are close.
This year saw a record number of registered voters abroad – over 90,000 – and a record number of postal votes, nearing 224,000, according to NVI data.
Electoral System and Thresholds
Hungary employs a 5% threshold for political parties, 10% for two-party coalitions, and 15% for three-or-more-party alliances. The D’Hondt method is used for distributing mandates from party lists.
Five party lists and 12 Hungarian minority lists were registered to participate in the elections, but the outcome will primarily be determined by the competition between the Fidesz-KDNP coalition led by Viktor Orbán and the Tisza party led by Péter Magyar.
Voting Process
Hungarian citizens voting domestically were entitled to cast two votes: one for a candidate in a single-member constituency and another for a party or national minority list.
Voters abroad cast only one vote, for a national list.
Parliamentary Composition
Hungarians elected 199 deputies to the National Assembly (Orszaggyules), a unicameral parliament. 106 are elected in single-member districts, and the remaining 93 are chosen from national lists.
In each district, the candidate with the most votes wins, even without a majority.
Reactions from Party Leaders
Following his vote in Budapest, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated he would respect the outcome if the opposition wins, adding, “The people’s decision must be respected,” but emphasized his intention to win.
Tisza leader Péter Magyar asserted that “no one seriously believes that Tisza will not win the election,” questioning whether the party would achieve a two-thirds majority needed for constitutional changes. He stated he would accept the results if no fraud significantly impacts the outcome.
Orbán and Magyar: Profiles
Viktor Orbán, co-founder and leader of Fidesz, has governed Hungary continuously since 2010. He began his political career in 1989 by calling for the departure of Soviet troops.
Since returning to power 16 years ago, he has transformed into an outspoken opponent of liberal democracy, altering the constitution and strengthening government control over media and the judiciary. Under his leadership, Hungary has been identified by Transparency International as the most corrupt country in the European Union.
His rival, Péter Magyar, is a former member of Fidesz who previously worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Hungary’s permanent representation to the EU. He gained prominence in 2024 after President Katalin Novák pardoned a person convicted of covering up pedophilia.
Magyar criticized the corruption within Orbán’s system in a YouTube address, leading to his departure from Fidesz. The address reached millions, sparking the largest protests in years, and he subsequently led the Respect and Freedom Party (Tisza), achieving the second-best result in the 2024 European Parliament elections.
