By Gergely Szakacs and Anita Komuves
BUDAPEST, April 12 (Reuters) – Hungary’s opposition Tisza party could win Sunday’s national election, two surveys showed, delivering a landmark defeat to veteran Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a nationalist ally of Russia who also has the backing of U.S. President Donald Trump.
The polls, the last ones conducted before voting started and published after polling stations had closed on Sunday, showed the upstart centre-right Tisza party of Peter Magyar garnering 55-57% support, ahead of Orban’s nationalist Fidesz party.
Some of these last-minute polls conducted before an election but only published after voting ends have proven accurate in the past. There are no exit polls for Sunday’s election.
If confirmed by official results due later on Sunday, this would mark the end of Orban’s 16-year rule and also – most likely – Hungary’s adversarial role inside the European Union, opening the way for a 90-billion-euro ($105 billion) EU loan to war-battered Ukraine that the veteran premier had blocked.
It would deprive Russian President Vladimir Putin of his main ally in the EU and send shockwaves through right-wing circles across the West, including Trump’s White House.
In Hungary, an Orban defeat could open the way for reforms that Tisza says would aim to rein in corruption and end the democratic backsliding that the EU has long accused Orban of overseeing.
However, the extent of such reforms will depend on whether Tisza can secure the two-thirds constitutional majority it would need to reverse much of Orban’s legacy.
Orban, a eurosceptic, carved out a model of a an “illiberal democracy” seen as a blueprint by Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement and its admirers in Europe.
But many Hungarians have grown increasingly weary https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/factbox-what-has-changed-hungary-during-orbans-12-year-rule-2022-03-31/ of Orban, 62, after three years of economic stagnation and soaring living costs as well as reports of oligarchs close to the government amassing more wealth.
Tisza’s leader Magyar appears to have successfully tapped into this frustration.
Casting his vote for Tisza in the Hungarian capital, Mihaly Bacsi, 27, said the country needed change.
“We need an improvement in public mood, there is too much tension in many areas and the current government only fuels these sentiments,” he said.
Another voter, who gave her name as Zsuzsa, said she wanted continuity.
“I would really like if all the results that have been achieved in recent years remain – and I am terribly afraid of the war,” she said, referring to the conflict raging in Ukraine, Hungary’s eastern neighbour.
Orban sought to cast Sunday’s election as a choice between “war and peace” nL8N3Z71ND. During campaigning, the government blanketed the country with signs warning that Magyar would drag Hungary into Russia’s war with Ukraine, something he strongly denies.
(Additional reporting by Krisztina Than, Anita Komuves, Lili Bayer, Thomas Holdstock, Judith Langowski, writing by Justyna Pawlak, editing by Bernadette Baum and Gareth Jones)
Disclaimer: This report is auto generated from the Reuters news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.