Hungary's nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban declared victory in Sunday's national elections, claiming a mandate for a fourth term as a still incomplete vote count showed a strong lead for his right-wing party.
In a 10-minute speech to Fidesz party officials and supporters at an election night event in Budapest, Orban addressed a crowd cheering “Viktor!” and declared it was a “huge victory” for his party.
It appeared possible that Fidesz would win another constitutional majority, allowing it to continue making deep unilateral changes to the Central European nation. The contest had been expected to be the closest since Orban took power in 2010, thanks to Hungary's six main opposition parties putting aside their ideological differences to form a united front against Fidesz. Voters were electing lawmakers to the country's 199-seat parliament.
Edit Zgut, a political scientist at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, predicted that a clear victory for Orban would allow him to move further in an autocratic direction, sidelining dissidents and capturing new areas of the economy. “We never thought this would be the result. We knew in advance that it would be an extremely unequal fight,” Marki-Zay said. “We do not dispute that Fidesz won this election. That this election was democratic and free is, of course, something we continue to dispute.”
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