By Judith Langowski and Gergely Szakacs
BUDAPEST, April 12 (Reuters) – Hungary’s opposition Tisza party appeared on track to win Sunday’s national election https://www.reuters.com/world/hungary/elections/, early results showed, in a potential landmark defeat for veteran Prime Minister Viktor Orban nL8N3ZL0R8, an ally of Russia who also had the backing of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Results from 29% of votes counted showed the upstart centre-right Tisza of Peter Magyar winning 132 seats in the 199-member parliament, ahead of Orban’s nationalist Fidesz party.
“We are optimistic,” Magyar told a briefing in a Budapest hotel where his party held its election night headquarters as cheering crowds gathered in the surrounding streets as results of the poll started to roll in.
Pollsters predicted a record voter turnout, with Hungarian television showing long queues outside some voting stations in Budapest. Data at 1630 GMT, half an hour before polls were due to close, showed 77.8% of voters casting their ballots, up from 67.8% four years earlier.
If the final results confirm the early readings, an end to Orban’s period in government after 16 years in power would have significant implications not only for Hungary, but for the European Union, Ukraine and beyond.
It would likely spell an end to Hungary’s adversarial role inside the EU, possibly opening the way for a 90 billion euro ($105 billion) loan to war-battered Ukraine blocked by Orban.
Defeat for Orban could also mean the eventual release of EU funds to Hungary that the bloc had suspended due to what Brussels said was Orban’s erosion of democratic standards.
If confirmed, his exit would also deprive Russian President Vladimir Putin of his main ally in the EU and send shockwaves through Western right-wing circles, including the White House.
In Hungary, a Tisza victory could open the way for reforms that the party says would aim to combat corruption and restore the independence of the judiciary and other institutions.
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.
ECONOMIC STAGNATION HURT ORBAN’S SUPPORT
Orban, a eurosceptic, carved out a model of 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, Gareth Jones and Alexander Smith)
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