Recent Hungarian by-elections

I assume most readers want me to say something about the Putin visit, but I think it’s better to postpone writing anything more on that subject until after the meeting itself. Instead, I’ll spend some time on another “hot topic,” the extreme-right Jobbik party and recent election results.

According to Ipsos, Jobbik has gained considerable strength since the beginning of 2014. And since October 2014 its rise has accelerated: it gained another 4%. At the same time Fidesz lost about 12% of its voters. Most of the disenchanted Fidesz voters moved over to the large undecided bloc. With the exception of the Demokratikus Koalíció, parties of the democratic opposition seem to be unable to capture the voters’ imagination.

The fear of a Jobbik resurgence was reinforced by the party’s success at the municipal elections on October 12, 2014 when they captured fourteen mayoralty positions as opposed to the three they won in 2010. Most of the towns Jobbik won were small and insignificant on the electoral map, with two exceptions. One was Ózd, near Miskolc, where the Jobbik candidate won over the incumbent Fidesz mayor by a margin of 66 votes. The Fidesz leadership, with the blessing of the Debrecen Appellate Court, decided to contest the result. It was a big mistake. The citizens of Ózd were outraged and decided to show their dissatisfaction with the “arrogant, condescending and corrupt” local Fidesz leadership. While in October only 10,214 people voted, for the second round 15,982 showed up. Jobbik’s candidate in October received 4,214 votes. In November he got 10,299 votes. The DK-MSZP candidate in October received 2,238 votes, in November only 520. Most local citizens voted for the Jobbik candidate not because they were committed Jobbik supporters but because they were convinced that he was the only person who had a chance of unseating the Fidesz incumbent.

The situation was different in Tapolca, which is located not in the underdeveloped area of Hungary where Jobbik has traditionally been strong but in the relatively affluent Transdanubia. Between 2010 and 2014 the Fidesz government had been generous to the town and funded a lot of improvements. So, even Jobbik supporters were stunned when it turned out that the Jobbik candidate, Zoltán Dobó, had unseated the incumbent Fidesz mayor in the 2014 municipal election. The margin was small, 146 votes, but the win was significant. It indicated, at least at first blush, that Jobbik was extending its influence into the better-off regions of the country. Reporters talking with locals, however, found out that some of the people who voted for Dobó didn’t know he was a member of Jobbik.

So, what happened? It seems that the Fidesz mayor didn’t keep his finger on the pulse of the electorate. He shut himself off from the voters. By contrast, Dobó, a council member since 2010, kept a high profile. And then there was a local affair that stirred up deep sentiments: the fate of Tapolca’s little hospital, which the government wanted to either close or strip of most of its functions. The local Fidesz leadership naturally supported the government’s decision–until it was far too late. By that time Zoltán Dobó and Lajos Rig, another Jobbik city father, had taken over the fight for the local hospital. Apparently, that was the main reason for Dobó’s success at the polls. The town itself, which has been in Fidesz hands since 1998, still has a predominantly Fidesz city council. On the eleven-member city council Jobbik won only four seats.

Mezőkövesd is another interesting case. Two candidates for a seat on the city council received exactly the same number of votes. If I wanted to be charitable I would call János Kötél, the Jobbik candidate, a man of limited abilities who is also a racist. For instance, a day before the repeated election a journalist for Index discovered that on Facebook Kötél had called the Roma “the biological weapon of Jews.” Yet he gained supporters between the two elections and ultimately prevailed. Were the voters endorsing his views? Most likely not. I suspect that the voters decided to gang up against the Fidesz candidate the second time around. The Mezőkövesd case reminds me of Ózd. The slogan seems to be “anyone but the incumbent Fidesz guys.”

All in all, since the local elections held on October 12 not one Fidesz candidate has managed to win a by-election. And now it looks as if Fidesz might even lose the Veszprém and Tapolca parliamentary by-elections, which must be held because of Tibor Navracsics’s departure to Brussels and the death of Jenő Lasztovicza, a member of parliament for the Tapolca district. If either of these two by-elections is lost, Fidesz will no longer have a two-thirds majority. How serious a blow that would be to Fidesz is a matter of debate. Some commentators claim that the lack of a super majority would make no difference because there would always be some people in Jobbik who would be glad to vote with Fidesz-KDNP. Others claim that the lack of a two-thirds majority would prevent Fidesz from transforming the present parliamentary system into a powerful presidential one, with Orbán at the helm. In either case, a Fidesz defeat in one or both of these districts would give an immediate boost to the democratic opposition and further damage the governing party.

Tibor Navracsics’s seat in and around the city of Veszprém will be decided on February 22, while voting in Jenő Lasztovicz’s district in Tapolca and environs will take place on April 19.

Source: Index / Photo Orsi Ajpek

A few words about the election in Navracsics’s district. Veszprém’s first district traditionally votes Fidesz. At the last national election Navracsics beat the MSZP candidate by 20% (47% to 27%), with the Jobbik candidate receiving 16%. After a lot of hesitation, Fidesz decided to nominate Lajos Némedi, the deputy mayor of Veszprém. About a week ago a secret opinion poll was taken, with surprising results. Zoltán Kész, an independent candidate supported by all the democratic parties except LMP, is doing extremely well. In fact, he is leading in the city of Veszprém, though trailing in the villages. As it now stands, Némedi has 43%, Kész 37%, Jobbik 11%, and LMP 4%. Jobbik seems to have lost voters since last April. The poll showed that the majority of the people think that the country is moving in the wrong direction (61%). Left-leaning voters are solidly behind Kész. Even 6% of Fidesz voters plan to switch their votes, and 31% of LMP voters say they will opt for Kész. Kész has a slight lead even among younger voters. Voters with only an eighth-grade education prefer Némedi (64% to 25%), but among university graduates it is 49% to 28% in Kész’s favor. In this latter group only 2% would vote for Jobbik.

In the last few days Fidesz changed the campaign slogan. Earlier their orange-colored posters read “Trust Fidesz!” but it was decided not to advertise Fidesz too much. Now the poster reads: “Trust Némedi!” Meanwhile, the anti-Kész campaign is in full swing, and  Fidesz is promising that fabulous government projects will be built in Veszprém if the district votes for Fidesz. We’ll see whether the voters of Veszprém take the bait.