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First time since 2006, a party has more supporters than Orbán's Fidesz according to a recent poll. Next election will be in 2026. (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 1 month ago by idegenszavak to c/[email protected]

7 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Due to high gerrymandering and messed up voting system it's expected that a result like this would still give Orbán a small majority in the parliament.

But Orbán won all elections since 2006 (in 2006 he lost parliamentary elections in March but won local elections in September, than won everything in 2010, than he changed the voting rules). Current system overwhelmingly punishes coalitions and small parties, and favors big parties.

Medián, the pollster behind this poll is usually one of the most accurate. Wiki page about recent polls, and the rise of Tisza Party: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2026_Hungarian_parliamentary_election

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I don't know if replacing Orban with someone that supported him until early this year is going to change much. Remember that even Lukashenko successfully pretended to be an anti-corruption champion while in the opposition before making Belarus is personal fief.

[–] idegenszavak 4 points 1 month ago

I'm also not a big fan of him, but literally anyone would be better than orbán. We have to give a chance to anyone, it can't be much more worse.

And we don't know what the exact voting rules will be, they can figure out something, they always changed it some month prior each election. Orbán won't give away the throne easily.

[–] Skiluros 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Curious to see how this goes. Wish all the best to the democratic, liberal-minded folks in Hungary.

The impression I get is Orban's rule has become ironclad over the last few decades (which makes sense as you get time to institutionalize "permanent" rule and condition society to such a state of affairs). I do hope I am wrong and my knowledge of Hungarian politics is subpar beyond foreign policy elements.

[–] idegenszavak 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Magyar is also not liberal, more like center right, like Fidesz was before 2010. But at least he is democratic. Yet. Classic liberal parties never reached more than 10-15% ever.

Parliament was basically dissolved in 2016, Orbán rules by decree since that, we always had some kind of state of emergency which gave him special powers, parliament is just a theater.

[–] Skiluros 3 points 1 month ago

Agreed. My comment was a general statement of solidarity. :)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Just remmeber that orban completely changed the electoral system and it now gives him an inbuilt advantage, even moreso than the Republicans have under the US system.

[–] idegenszavak 2 points 1 month ago

Yep, and we don't know what else will come. There are speculations that he will decrease the threshold, so smaller and fake parties can get seats, they will create new electoral districts for Hungarians living in Romania, Serbia and Slovakia, but not for those who live in Western Europe, etc...

Before every election he modified some rules some month prior the election, so it would give him the best possible result, you can expect this will happen again in 2026. Usually these changes are so close to the election, that opposition parties can hardly react, and they have to rethink their full strategy.