Important parliamentary elections will be held in Hungary. What you need to know

Parliamentary elections will be held in Hungary on April 12. The main intrigue is whether the Fidesz party of the current Prime Minister Viktor Orban will be able to win a fifth victory in a row. She is being challenged by Tisa, led by Orban's former party member Peter Magyar, who became opposition leader two years ago. How the elections will be held and who else is taking part in them can be found in the Izvestia article.

How will the elections be held

Parliamentary elections in Hungary are held every four years. They elect 199 deputies to the National Assembly, the country's unicameral legislative body that forms the government and appoints the Prime Minister. The upcoming elections, which will be held on April 12, will be the tenth since the end of the socialist system in Hungary.

• Of the 199 deputies, 106 are elected in single-mandate districts according to the majority system, that is, the mandate is given to the one who received the most votes, even if the total is less than 50%. The remaining 93 deputies are elected on national party lists. The electoral barrier is 5% for single-party lists, 10% for two-party lists, and 15% for associations of three or more parties. In addition, 13 national minorities can receive one quota out of the national 93 if they register their list and get at least 0.27% of the votes.

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• To put up a national list, a party must have candidates in 71 electoral districts and at least 14 regions and Budapest. In 2026, there are only five such parties and coalitions: the Fidesz coalition and the Christian Democratic People's Party (KDNP), the Tisa Party, the Our Motherland Movement (MH), the Democratic Coalition (DK) and the satirical Two-Tailed Dog Party (MKKP). Eight more parties and 33 independent candidates are competing for seats in individual constituencies.

Which parties are involved

• One of the two main contenders to win the election is the Fidesz party of the current Prime Minister Viktor Orban. She has participated in all elections since 1990 and has been in power since 2010 to the present, and she also had a majority in Parliament from 1998 to 2002. Orban himself characterizes Fidesz's ideology as an illiberal democracy, and is viewed by outside observers as an extreme right-wing and national conservative party.

Fidesz's policy is characterized by euroscepticism, it opposes mass migration, multiculturalism and interference in the affairs of other countries. In foreign policy, the party calls for the lifting of anti-Russian sanctions and the withdrawal of financial and military assistance to Ukraine. Fidesz is running in a coalition with the Christian Democratic People's Party, which focuses on traditional and Christian values.

• The second contender is the Tisa party, which is participating in the elections for the first time, led by former Fidesz member Peter Magyar. He became widely known after the 2024 scandal surrounding Hungarian President Katalin Novak. Then it became known that she had pardoned the deputy director of the orphanage, who was convicted of concealing cases of sexual abuse of children. Amid the protests, Novak resigned along with Justice Minister Judit Varga, whose ex-husband is a Magyar. He seized the moment to launch a political career and quickly became the leader of the opposition. Magyar became the head of the Tisa party, which had been a small conservative group before him.

• Before the elections, Tisa adopted a center-right position and declared the fight against corruption as its main goal. She also took a pro-European and pro-Western course. Although Magyar actively criticizes Fidesz and Orban in his statements, both political forces agree with restrictions on the influx of migrants and the allocation of aid to Ukraine. Moreover, in early March, Magyar called on the European Union to sever all ties with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky because of his open threats against the Hungarian Prime Minister. The Tisa campaign received support from many small opposition parties, which refused to participate in the elections and called on voters to vote for it.

• The third force in Hungary is the Our Motherland movement. It is an extreme-right, nationalist and populist party founded in 2018 by Laszlo Toroczka. Its ideology is close to Fidesz, but it takes a more radical position. In particular, MH advocates the economic independence of Hungary and the demolition of the last Soviet monuments, including those dedicated to the victims of the Great Patriotic War. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Nasha Rodina called for the abandonment of vaccination.

• The Democratic Coalition became one of the few moderate parties that did not abandon the elections in favor of Tisa. It belongs to the Social Democratic parties that broke away in 2010 from the Hungarian Socialist Party, which was once one of the two leading political forces along with Fidesz. DK is in opposition to Orban and advocates gradual European integration.

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• The most unusual of Hungary's largest parties is the Two-Tailed Dog Party, which conducts mock election campaigns and ridicules real political forces. At the dawn of its existence, it promised voters eternal life, a one-day work week and two sunsets a day. Despite its absurdist nature, the MKKP regularly wins council seats in local elections, and the current parliamentary campaign will be its third.

What were the last elections like

• Fidesz won the 2022 elections in a coalition with the KDNP. This was the fourth consecutive victory for Orban's party, which secured it a majority in parliament. The coalition won 54.13% of the national vote, which gave it 48 seats, and won in 87 more electoral districts. Compared to 2018, Orban's party won two more seats. Also, one representative from the German community went to parliament, who announced his support for the Fidesz course.

• Fidesz's main rival was the broad opposition coalition In Unity for Hungary, which was specially formed for the elections. It united six parties of different spectrum at once, including moderate conservatives, Social Democrats and liberals. The coalition included DK, who is now running separately.

• "In Unity for Hungary" showed the second result, gaining a total of 57 seats in parliament — 38 on the national list and 18 in individual districts. Budapest was the only region in which the coalition was ahead of Fidesz. The third and last party to overcome the electoral barrier was the Our Motherland movement. Following the results of its first parliamentary elections, it won six mandates. The turnout in the elections was 70.21% of voters.