On Sunday, Hungarians went to the polls in an atmosphere of heightened emotions. The day after the election that saw a record turnout several conclusions can be drawn: the traditional left has nearly disappeared, anti-Hungarian conduct in the EP has been punished by voters, and Fidesz remains by far the strongest party. However, there are still many unanswered questions, especially regarding the next steps of the newcomer Tisza party.
The long-ruling right-wing Fidesz party won by the third largest margin in the European Parliamentary elections last night, behind the PSD-PNL big tent coalition in Romania and long-time ally Marine Le Pen’s right-wing populist Rassemblement National in France. Fidesz also got the third highest vote share, behind PSD-PNL’s 53 per cent and the Maltese Labour Party’s 45 per cent.
‘When discussing on a diaspora level, we should not just share local reports with each other, but actually try to find real solutions to the problems. For example, nowadays, we talk a lot about how to reach people who no longer speak Hungarian. To paraphrase a Sándor Kányádi poem: we have only one homeland, and that is the Hungarian language. If the language is lost, many great things will be lost as well.’
Viktor Orbán expressed gratitude to all Hungarian voters who decided to participate in the dual election. He noted that the turnout for the municipal and European Parliament elections on Sunday was record high in Hungary, reaching 57 per cent.
The highest number of voters was registered in London, with 2,148 voters, of whom 1,765 cast their votes, resulting in an 82.17 per cent turnout.
After a Vitézy lead until after midnight, Karácsony overtook and the results at 4 a.m. showed the closest election in the history of the city. Karácsony ended up winning by as few as 324 votes.
While Vitézy led for a long time, the mayoral elections ended up in Karácsony’s favour. Fidesz took the expected 11 Parliamentary seats.
Hungarian Conservative is a quarterly magazine on contemporary political, philosophical and cultural issues from a conservative perspective.