The next Sunday, the elections of 2018 will take place in Hungary. Now it looks like Viktor Orban and the Fidesz-KDNP alliance will gain the majority of the votes. There are 199 seats in the Hungarian National Assembly. 93 seats will be decided by a nationwide constituency by propotional representation. The reamaining 106 seats can be gained through single-member constituencies. This system is very ideal for the government, they can win most of the single-member constituencies. If the opposition wants to take many seats than they have to be able to stand up for one single opposition candidate in every constituency. The negotiations among the oppsition parties are still ongoing as of now. Will they succed? Or the Orban government can start the third term in a row?

Fidesz-KDNP

Orban does not represent himself as the Prime Minister candidate of the Fidesz party. His message is that he is the leader of Hungary and the Hungarian people. 15 March is a national holiday in Hungary, but in elections year it is also the start of the campaign. At Orban’s speech, few hundred thousand were present, it was the biggest political rally on that day.  Orban depicts the opposition Prime Minister candidates as those who are supported by international organizations. Orban still has the support from the majority of the voters. The party can expect 50% of votes from the nationwide constituency and will probably win 80-90% of the single-member constituencies. They have a chance to gain the 2/3 of the seats in the National Assembly, which would strengthen their postitions. Even though they talk about the opposition as a united anti-goverment alliance, in fact the oppostition is deeply devided and that helps the government to keep their strong position.

Jobbik

The party went through a big change during the last few years. The party leader Gábor Vona declared the new way to be opened for the leftist voters. Many nationwide famous leftist political person stood up for Jobbik to help them in their transformation. Vona declared he will be Prime Minister from this year, but it is very far from what we can predict now. It looks like the radical rightist supporters left the party but they couldn't gain more voters from the central. So the party is not more popular than it was. They are still the second biggest party in the country, but it means only about 15% of the votes. Jobbik is willing to cooperate with leftist parties excluding the party of the former Prime Minister Gyurcsány. Gyurcsány also condemn Jobbik, despite their change of attitude. The confrontation of the two parties means the anti-Fidesz coalition is lacking a party with over 10% of the votes, anyway. Vona, through the transformation of the party, removed many radical key figure of the party. He did this because he promised in this way they will be able to win the elections. But if there is no major change in politics in the next few days, it wont happen, and Vona will face huge opposition scandal inside his own party.

MSZP-PM

The strongest political formation on the left side is the MSZP-PM coalition. The MSZP had a strong Prime Minister candidate last year, who had a social-democrat political program. Eventually, he resignated due to problems inside the party. It was unclear, but he claimed that many members of the party are not interested in replacing the government. Their new Prime Minister candidate is the candidate of a small green party called Párbeszéd Magyarországért (PM). Gergely Karácsony now holds the greatest support on the left side. If the left side would manage to win the elections he would be Prime Minister. Even though he is a widely accepted politician, who is often depicted as the „good guy”, he is problematic in many cases if its about negotiations with other parties. He is the former member of the third way green party LMP. Karácsony left that party and created PM with a similar profile a few years ago. Karácsony was originally the candidate of another party called Együtt, but he abandoned them in favour of MSZP, now he should make agreement with them too.

DK

The Democratic Coalition (Demokratikus Koalíció) is the party of the former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány. They are the radicals on the left side. They reject to cooperate with Jobbik, but they made a very favorable agreement with MSZP. When MSZP had no Prime Minister candidate the DK made an agreement with them about the single-member constituencies. DK managed to take 46 constitunecies while MSZP kept 60. The party was able to grow recently now it is possible they will gain the 10% of the votes. The coordination with the MSZP-PM coalition can be very profitbale for them.

Együtt

Együtt is a small party created in 2014 in order to unite the leftist parties. Ironically, Együtt is now left alone (Együtt means Together in Hungarian). They made an agreement with PM but they were abandoned in favor of the much more popular MSZP. Együtt is a liberal party with very few nationwide known members. They have chance to win only one single-member constituency. They can barely expect the 1% of the votes. But their presence can be problematic for other leftist parties. Együtt can gain a few thousand votes in Budapest, and it can be enough to make the most popular leftist opponent lose. Karácsony has to make a deal with them, and they have to make it very soon.

LMP

The small green party can be the winner of the devided left side. Their candidate for Prime Minister is Bernadett Szél. LMP was wiling to cooperate with other parties but they expected cooperation with all the opposition parties including Jobbik. Now Jobbik only negotiate with them. It looks like they will manage to gain the 7% of the votes which is enough to get into the National Assembly because 5% is needed for that.

Momentum

The small party is in a difficult situation. The party is trying to be a new wawe of politicians with very young members. They condemn the Fidesz goverment as much as they condemn the earlier socialist governments. On the other way if they not cooperate with the leftist oppostion than it can lead to more devided left side which will grant more seats for the current goverment. As of now Momentum resignated in several districts in favor of the most popular oppostition candidate, even the party leader András Fekete-Győr resignated from the Budapest downtown area’s constituency. The party try to maintain a program similar to the French President’s, Emmanuel Macron. They keep in touch with the French movement En Marche. According to latest polls they can expect 3-4 % of the votes which would be not enough to enter to the National Assembly but with a strong campaign maybe they can grow up to reach the needed 5% of the votes.

Orbán prepare to stand united with the Hungarian people. His fight is against the international froces which try to take over Hungary. For him the opposition parties are just small puppets of these forces. Meanwhile the opposition try to stand united against the government. There are several projects and applications now to show in which constituency who is the most popular opposition candidate. The parties encourage people to vote for the strongest candidate. But it is questionable if the voters will follow these instructions. Jobbik was born from the political struggle created by Ferenc Gyurcsány, its probable that they won’t vote for him, they won’t think he is better than Orbán, even if Vona says so. The opposition struggle to have one candidate in every district but their real struggle would start only if they would manage to win the elections.

 
Predictions by polling companies, gray is not decided