Hungarian voters just endured an exceptionally tense and emotional election campaign. Here’s a look, in photos, at how long-serving Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s loss played out. From Telex.
After 16 years in power – almost all of it while holding a two-thirds majority – Viktor Orban and Fidesz-KDNP are leaving office. Peter Magyar of the Tisza Party, founded only two years ago, will almost certainly become prime minister starting in May.
Despite all the pre-election noise from Fidesz, election day passed peacefully. There were no incidents, and Hungarians turned out to vote in record numbers. This represents a very strong mandate for the next government, which is once again likely to have a two-thirds majority, with more than 3 million voters behind them.
For the smaller parties, however, voting day on 12 April was devastating. While far-right Mi Hazank will likely just barely make it into parliament, they probably expected a better result than this. The Democratic Coalition fared very poorly, receiving just around 1 percent of the vote, and Klara Dobrev has resigned her position as party chair. The Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog Party, meanwhile, fell below the 1 percent threshold, so it will now have to start thinking about how to repay its campaign funding.
Telex photographers documented the exceptionally tense and emotional election day that brought the campaign to a close. Now, through the lens of their cameras, here’s a review of how voting day unfolded for Fidesz, Tisza, and the crowds celebrating the end of the Orban regime.
Fidesz
For the Fidesz leadership, the day began in the usual manner seen during so many elections: Viktor Orban and his wife, Aniko Levai, cast their ballots in Budapest’s 12th district, and the prime minister made a brief statement to the numerous Hungarian and international media outlets present. Here, he still radiated confidence, saying, “I came here to win.”
The party traditionally waits for the election results at the Balna in Budapest, and that was the case this time as well. A relatively small area was set up in front of the building for supporters gathering outside.
Inside, the press was kept strictly separated from members of the party, making it difficult to take photos.
They did not go overboard with communicating with the public. After the polls closed, Gergely Gulyas, the minister of the Prime Minister’s Office, and parliamentarian Lorinc Nacsa held a press conference, during which Gulyas assured everyone that “this election provided an appropriate framework for the democratic expression of opinion.”
As the results started to come in, the mood among Fidesz supporters quickly turned somber, and the tide shifted in favor of a decisive Tisza victory so quickly that Viktor Orban – perhaps to the surprise of many – congratulated Peter Magyar on his victory before 10 p.m.
Orban then gave a brief concession speech inside the building, in which he assured his voters that Fidesz would continue to serve the country even while in opposition. Not everyone expected to be there was on stage alongside Orban. We looked in vain for Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto, whom Orban had previously described as one of the pillars of the campaign.
Supporters gathered in front of the building were visibly saddened. There were many tearful faces among them, and after the results came in they quickly went home.
Tisza
After a similar start to election day for the Tisza Party, it took a completely different turn. Magyar voted in a polling station quite close to Orban’s, early in the morning, and told the press that he “expects a very good result” and that once his party won, “we will not be a country without consequences.”
Tisza’s election headquarters exuded a completely different atmosphere even during the day, when we only knew the turnout figures: a May Day–like mood popped up on Batthyany Square, complete with a hot dog stand, draft beer, and booths selling souvenirs in Hungary’s national colors. Supporters lined up to have their picture taken with “Ricsi,” the party’s Ford Transit that Peter Magyar often used to tour the country in the past two years.
The quayside, lined with beer-decked tables, might as well have been a venue for celebrations on 20 August – Hungary’s national day. That was pretty much the atmosphere in the afternoon.
When the results favorable to the party started coming in after 8 p.m., the mood became increasingly relaxed.
Supporters had to wait quite a while for Magyar’s speech, but by the time he walked onto the scene with the party leadership around 11 p.m., a significant crowd had already gathered on Batthyany Square and along the riverfront.
The stage was set up so that the entire lit-up parliament building was visible behind it, which added a significant visual impact to the speech. Magyar called for national unity and said, “Starting today, this country is alive again.”
At the same time, he promised that those who had served the current regime would have no place in public life, and called on, among others, the incumbent president, the chief prosecutor, and the presidents of the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court to resign.
Budapest Celebrates
In Budapest, where the majority has long been staunchly opposed to Fidesz, Orban’s humiliating defeat triggered exactly the reaction one might have expected: the last time scenes like those seen in the city center now, following Tisza’s victory, were perhaps witnessed after Hungary’s unexpected successes during the 2016 European Football Championship.
Many people let their tension out by tearing down Fidesz posters, but our photographers didn’t witness anything more extreme than that in the city.
The Grand Boulevard, the waterfront, and the squares were filled with young people celebrating and partying, who didn’t seem to care that the next day was a workday.
Telex journalists Elod Fruzsina, Ivandi-Szabo Balazs, Nemeth Sz. Peter, and Ajpek Orsi contributed to this report, which originally appeared here. Translation from Hungarian by Andrea Horvath Kavai.
