BUDAPEST—Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban scored a fourth consecutive landslide win in Sunday’s election, as voters endorsed his ambition of a conservative state.
Surrounded by leading party members, a triumphant Orban, 58, said Sunday’s victory came against all odds.
“We have scored a victory so big, that it can be seen even from the Moon,” he said. “We have defended Hungary’s sovereignty and freedom.”
Preliminary results with about 98 percent of national party list votes counted showed Orban’s Fidesz party leading with 53.1 percent of votes versus 35 percent for Peter 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.
Opposition leader Marki-Zay, 49, conceded defeat.
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 an European Union member state.
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 percent in February in Hungary.
Orban has banned any transport of arms to Ukraine via Hungarian territory, and said benefits of close ties with Russia include gas supply security. Read More
Viktor Orban claims his party has defeated an overwhelming force of opposition. Hungary’s Viktor Orban, fresh from winning a fourth term as prime minister in Sunday’s election, said his party was victorious despite facing interference from left-wing forces at home and “opponents” around the world. Hungarian PM Viktor Orban claimed his party overcame opposition from Ukraine’s president Zelensky and billionaire George Soros to win Sunday election.
“We have such a victory, it can be seen from the moon, but it’s sure that it can be seen from Brussels,” Orban told supporters on Sunday night, alluding to his party’s clashes with EU leaders. “We will remember this victory until the end of our lives because we had to fight against a huge amount of opponents.”
Those forces included not only Hungary’s own opposition parties, he said, but also “Brussels bureaucrats, the Soros empire – with all its money – the international mainstream media, and in the end, even the Ukrainian president. We never had so many opponents at the same time.”
Orban’s Fidesz-led coalition has crushed a six-party opposition bloc in Sunday’s elections, and with over 90% of votes counted is projected to secure enough parliament seats for yet another constitutional supermajority.
“The entire world can see that our brand of Christian democratic, conservative, patriotic politics has won,” Orban declared.
In the run-up to the election, Orban was portrayed as “pro-Putin” by opponents and Western media outlets, after he resisted pressure to take a stronger stance against Russian President Vladimir Putin over Moscow’s attack on Ukraine.
On the eve of the election, Zelensky took time out from defending against Russia’s military offensive to complain that Orban had failed to condemn Putin or aid Kiev’s war effort.
Orban has tried to keep Hungary out of the conflict, saying that sending weapons to Ukraine would make his country a target for Russian retaliation. He also has resisted pressure to sanction Russian oil and natural gas, saying Hungary has no alternative suppliers available to meet its fuel needs.
“This isn’t our war, we have to stay out of it,” Orban said during a campaign rally on Friday. He added that “Zelensky is not voting today,” and that “Putin isn’t running in the Hungarian elections.”