Hungary’s Tisza Party is projected to win 132 mandates in the country’s 199-seat parliament, according to partial results with 29.2% of votes counted, the Hungarian National Election Office said.
The centre-right opposition party headed towards a historic defeat of veteran Prime Minister Viktor Orban after 16 years in power.
The projection represents an increase on an earlier estimate of 125 seats based on 14.7% of votes counted. Two surveys published after polling stations closed on Sunday had put Tisza leader Peter Magyar’s party on 55 to 57% support, ahead of Orban’s nationalist Fidesz party, with pollster Median projecting 135 seats and pollster 21 Research Centre projecting 132.
“We have seen the fresh polls and based on the turnout data and information that we received we are optimistic,” Magyar told a briefing. Orban’s chief of staff Gergely Gulyas, however, said Fidesz was confident of winning a majority after what he described as a democratic vote.
Voter turnout reached 74.23% as of 15:00 GMT, up sharply from 62.92% at the same point in the 2022 election, with long queues reported outside voting stations in Budapest. Official results are due later on Sunday evening.
Orban, 62, has governed Hungary for 16 years, building what he describes as an “illiberal democracy” seen as a model by right-wing movements across the West, including US President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement. Many Hungarians have grown weary of three years of economic stagnation and soaring living costs, as well as reports of oligarchs close to the government accumulating wealth.
If the projection holds, Orban’s defeat would have significant implications beyond Hungary. It would likely end Hungary’s adversarial role inside the EU, potentially opening the way for a €90 billion EU loan to Ukraine that Orban had blocked, and the eventual release of EU funds suspended over what Brussels described as Orban’s erosion of democratic standards. An Orban exit would also deprive Russian President Vladimir Putin of his main ally within the EU.
A Tisza victory could open the way for reforms aimed at combating corruption and restoring the independence of the judiciary. However, carrying out constitutional reforms would require a two-thirds parliamentary majority of 133 seats — one more than Tisza’s current projection of 132. Whether the party crosses that threshold will be one of the most closely watched outcomes of the count.
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