Local Elections – Orban: “Third Win” in the Bag Amid Low Turnout

Budapest, October 13 (MTI) – “With our success in the local elections, we have our third win,” while in Budapest “we have more than a two-thirds,” Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the Fidesz leader, said after preliminary results were released on Sunday evening.

Turnout, at around 42 percent with 80 percent of votes counted, was lower than 46 percent four years ago.

“Cohesion, cooperation and unity have won the day”, the prime minister said, adding that “animosity, division, cynicism and hopelessness have been defeated … We will make Hungary great in the next four years,” Orban said after Fidesz won in 22 out of Hungary’s 23 major cities.

Socialist stalwart Laszlo Botka won the southern city of Szeged, the left-wing opposition’s only big city win.

Pollsters and political analysts had expected radical nationalist Jobbik to perform well in rural areas. In the end the party came second in 17 out of 19 counties and won in nine towns, up from three in 2010. In Budapest, as expected, it failed to make a breakthrough.

Gabor Vona, Jobbik’s leader, said his party had notched up a significant achievement in the local elections, adding he trusted that in the 2018 general election voters would have a choice between Fidesz and Jobbik. He said that Fidesz’s “two-thirds majority will not last forever,” and so Jobbik would start preparing for government.

The poor north-eastern city of Miskolc was a key battleground with a tight three-way race expected between Fidesz, the leftist opposition and Jobbik. In the end, Fidesz won comfortably, the left-wing opposition came second and Jobbik third.

Istvan Tarlos, the Fidesz-backed mayor of Budapest, who was voted back into power with just over 49 percent, told supporters he would focus on resolving the city’s problems. “It won’t be an easy job, but we will be there, and you can rely on us.”

In the capital, Fidesz won 17 out of 23 districts. The others were won by the left-wing parties and an independent. In the assembly Fidesz will have 20 representatives out of 33, the Socialists 5, DK 2, E-PM 2, Jobbik and LMP a single one each and there will be one independent and a joint candidate of the leftist parties.

Lajos Bokros, who came in second in the race to become Budapest mayor, said that his result should be considered a victory “in a dictatorship”. Commenting on his garnering 36 percent of the votes late on Sunday, Bokros said that “though we are happy with that result, we will have to work hard so that Hungary can shrug the octopus off in 2018.”