BUDAPEST (Reuters) -- Hungary’s
nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban scored a fourth consecutive landslide win in Sunday’s election, as voters endorsed his ambition of a conservative, “illiberal” state and shrugged off concerns over Budapest’s close ties with Moscow.
Orban mounted a successful campaign to persuade his Fidesz party’s core electorate that the six-party opposition alliance of Peter Marki-Zay promising to mend ties with the European Union could lead the country into war, an accusation the opposition denied.
Preliminary results with about 98% of national party list votes counted showed Orban’s Fidesz party leading with 53.1% of votes versus 35% for Marki-Zay’s opposition alliance. Fidesz was also winning 88 of 106 single-member constituencies.
Based on preliminary results, the National Election Office said Fidesz would have 135 seats, a two-thirds majority, and the opposition alliance would have 56 seats. A far-right party called Our Homeland would also make it into parliament, winning
7 seats.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) sent a full-scale election monitoring mission for the vote, only the second such effort in a European Union member state.
One of Europe’s longest-serving leaders, Orban has emerged as a vocal supporter of anti-immigration policies and an opponent of tough energy sanctions against Moscow.
Critics say he has sought to cement one-party rule by overhauling the constitution, taking control of a majority of media outlets and rejigging election rules, as well as staffing key government posts with loyalists and rewarding businessmen close to Fidesz with lucrative state contracts.
Still, he wins favor with many older, poorer voters in rural areas who espouse his traditional Christian values and with families who benefit from a host of tax breaks and price caps on fuel and some foodstuffs.
The election comes at a time when global energy woes and steep labor shortages in the region have fueled inflation increases throughout central Europe. Consumer price growth reached an almost 15-year high of 8.3% in February in Hungary.
Critics say the public perception of the war has been influenced by state-controlled media which have amplified Orban’s accusations that an opposition-led government would support sanctions on Russian gas shipments and put Hungary at risk by shipping weapons to Ukraine.