Polling stations across Hungary have opened their doors to kick off what are possibly the most significant European elections of the year—a contest in which Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party faces the greatest threat to its decade-and-a-half-long rule: his former subordinate and current poll frontrunner, Péter Magyar, and his Tisza party.
The polls opened at 6:00 a.m. local time (the same time as in mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands), marking the start of 13 hours of voting that will run until 7:00 p.m. Vote counting is expected to be largely complete by nightfall, though a short wait will be necessary to determine the results of the votes cast abroad.
Opinion polls serve as little more than a rough guide, given the vast disparities in survey results depending on the media outlet’s political alignment with the Orbán government. There appears to be a general consensus that Magyar and the Tisza party are the frontrunners; however, the exact margin of victory remains impossible to calculate at this stage, pending the outcome of the diaspora vote—traditionally favorable to Fidesz—and the performance of potential coalition partners for Orbán, such as the far-right Our Homeland (Mi Hazánk) movement led by László Toroczkai.
Should Magyar win the election, the diaspora vote will be crucial in determining the size of his lead over the incumbent Prime Minister. The decisive victory that the opposition challenger would require to launch a direct assault—as he has vowed to do—on the power structures established by Orbán over the past 16 years appears, frankly, to be an exceedingly difficult feat to achieve.
Magyar—fundamentally a conservative like Orbán—has, however, pledged to foster friendlier relations with Brussels. This is a matter of paramount importance, given the immense friction that has characterized the relationship between the European Union and the Hungarian leader for years—tensions that have only intensified since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, particularly in light of Orbán’s long-standing Euroscepticism and his close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
