Hungarian Politics

[Tamas]

So the latest attack by the governing party on the united opposition in the election campaign (elections this Sunday), is that they claim they are closely coordinating with... Zelensky. 

On influencing the Hungarian elections (must be a top priority for Zelensky right now), so that the opposition once having won could "immediately begin weapon shipments for Ukraine" (teh horror) and immediately "support embargo on oil and gas shipments from Russia to Ukraine".

i.e. Fidesz considers the accusation of a strong pro-Ukrainian stance a smear on the opposition. Tells you all, really.

[Tamas]

Another cross-border mail voting scandal which will have no consequence: on a field in Romania, among a big pile of ash and rubble, a bunch of only partially burned filled-out ballot papers of the Hungarian election have been discovered, with their envelopes, 35-50 of them which apparently were not destroyed by the fire. Incidentally, they all seem to be non-Fidesz votes. The Romanian police is investigating.

[HVC]

I'm intrigued by the professional dog

[Tamas]

I'm intrigued by the professional dog

It's the joke/parody party which over the last 8 years or so has morphed into an organisation which uses the state grants received for their 1-2% election results to sponsor charity initiatives and such. It's not their intention but it works great for Fidesz as it reduces the votes going to viable opposition candidates

[Tamas]

Almost 50% of votes counted, the election so far seems an absolute disaster for pro-democracy forces.

[Tamas]

Seems to be this is going to be the biggest ever success of Fidesz in terms of most seats of Parliament gained.

The only silver lining I can see in this is that the opposition do not have anything to blame: not the 1-2 parties who remained outside of the opposition alliance, not cheating - overwhelming and unseen in the West media dominance of Orban still is to blame of course, but the facts remain: seemingly 20% more voters want Fidesz than the opposition.

[Razgovory]

So the latest attack by the governing party on the united opposition in the election campaign (elections this Sunday), is that they claim they are closely coordinating with... Zelensky. 

On influencing the Hungarian elections (must be a top priority for Zelensky right now), so that the opposition once having won could "immediately begin weapon shipments for Ukraine" (teh horror) and immediately "support embargo on oil and gas shipments from Russia to Ukraine".

i.e. Fidesz considers the accusation of a strong pro-Ukrainian stance a smear on the opposition. Tells you all, really.

Maybe when Soros dies Zelensky can be elevate to the status of "arch-Jew" in Hungarian politics.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Do you get to vote in these elections Tamas?

[Tamas]

Do you get to vote in these elections Tamas?

Yes if I wanted to, I could have registered to vote at the London embassy but I didn't, I was skeptical about what would happen to my vote, seeing the news about the mail-in ballots from Serbia and Romania, possibly with good reason.

[Tamas]

In the Hungarian election system you  have a national list you vote on which hands out part of the seats, and then you also vote on your district's MP individually.

On the list, the opposition alliance received 1 million fewer votes than they did when running non-allied in 2018. 

But, the official far-right (Fidesz is far-right in rhetoric and actions, but still like to pretend they are non-radicals) is back to Parliament! You might recall that following Fidesz' push to the right edge of the spectrum Jobbik, the previous tenant of that space chose to mellow out and try to take the emptying right-of-center. Turns out like in America, there's no such thing anymore. Breakaway nazis from Jobbik created a party with rather obvious Fidesz help (called Mi Hazank - Our Homeland). They ran on their own (with limited backing from Orbanist media) and have achieved around 6% of the votes and thus will have a few MPs, enough to create their own official faction in Parliament.

So I think in a way what happened was that -again like in America- there's no appetite for a moderate Right. (The opposition alliance's PM-candidate was also running on the platform of him being moderate right, and we can see the result). Those who like to pretend they are moderate would rather still vote for Orban thankyouverymuch, and for those whom Orban is still too timid, they didn't hesitate to replace traitor Jobbik with Mi Hazank.

As I wrote last night: the only good thing about this, is that it shows a clear picture: it may be because of vicious and overwhelming propaganda, but a clear majority of Hungarians want Orban, and content with him and what he is doing.

[Josquius]

Do you get to vote in these elections Tamas?

Yes if I wanted to, I could have registered to vote at the London embassy but I didn't, I was skeptical about what would happen to my vote, seeing the news about the mail-in ballots from Serbia and Romania, possibly with good reason.

.
You mean any postal vote will be dumped and just given to Orban?

[Tamas]

Do you get to vote in these elections Tamas?

Yes if I wanted to, I could have registered to vote at the London embassy but I didn't, I was skeptical about what would happen to my vote, seeing the news about the mail-in ballots from Serbia and Romania, possibly with good reason.

.
You mean any postal vote will be dumped and just given to Orban?

Pretty much.

There is strong evidence of postal ballots handled directly by pro-Orban civilians (ethnic Hungarians) in Serbia, and there was an incident (see above) of some opposition-voting ballots being burned in Romania. The latter is unclear of whether a true thing or an elaborate provocation, but the Hungarian election regulator declared they cannot take responsibility for votes happening outside Hungary's borders (  ).

[Tamas]

Things to highlight in Orban's victory speech last night: no mention of the (almost) half of the country who didn't vote on him, but rather gloating about having defeated Brussels, Soros, and Zelensky.

[The Larch]

Zelensky? 

[The Larch]

In related Central European autocratic news, Serbia also reelected their President for another term this weekend.

Serbia president Aleksandar Vučić claims election victory to secure second term
Preliminary results show Vučić on 59.5% of vote after campaign that promised stability
(...)
Vučić had secured 59.5% of the vote with 87.67% of ballots counted, the commission said. The opposition candidate Zdravko Ponoš, a retired army general, was on 17.5%..

Parlamentary elections were also held, and Vucic's party had similarly auspicious results:

The commission said Vučić's ruling Serbian Progressive party (SNS) won 43.4% of votes in the parliamentary election, with Ponoš's United for Victory alliance on 13.1% and the Socialist party of Serbia, a longtime SNS coalition partner, third with 11.7%.