European elections: one piece of good news and two pieces of bad news for Mr. Orbán

HUNGARY - In Brief 27 May 2019 by Istvan Racz

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At first glance, PM Orbán came very well out of the European Parliament elections held at the weekend. His Fidesz-KDNP coalition won 52.4% of the Hungarian vote, which is a better result than the 47.4% they collected at the latest parliamentary election in March 2018. By this popular vote, Fidesz won no less than 13 of the total 21 seats allocated to Hungary in the European Parliament for the next five years.But there are two pieces of bad news as well. One is that the euroskeptic revolution Mr. Orbán and his political friends all around Europe were hoping did not take place. Europe's political middle, including the Christian democrat EPP, the socialist S&D, the liberal ALDE + En Marche, and the Greens-EFA together won 67.1% of all seats (65.1% if Fidesz' seats are subtracted). This is down from the 69.6% jointly held by them in the outgoing parliament but it is better than expected in the latest polls, and it means that the EP will remain dominated by parties from the political middle, rather than by the populistic / radical right or left parties.The other piece of bad news is the opposition's performance in the Hungarian vote. In fact, rightist votes - which in Hungary means radical or far right votes, as genuine moderate right wing parties do not exist any more - decreased by 5% points to 62% since last March. Fidesz grabbed more of that total, whereas the other two rightist parties, the opposition Jobbik and Mi Hazánk parties jointly won only 10%, i.e. just half of their result in March 2018.In addition, the degree of fragmentation on the opposition side appears to have decreased as well. The pro-European leftist-liberal Democratic Coalition (DK) won 16.2% and 4 se...