Orban’s party suffers major losses in Hungary’s local votes
BUDAPEST, Hungary — Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s dominant right-wing Fidesz party suffered large losses in Sunday’s local elections in Hungary.
Opposition candidates won the mayoral race in Budapest, the capital, and were also projected to win in 10 of the country’s 23 largest cities. In 2014, the opposition won just three of those races.
Fidesz, which had won every major election since 2010, kept up its dominance in smaller cities and towns and, especially, in rural areas.
In Budapest, however, where Fidesz has long faced more resistance than practically anywhere else in the country, opposition candidate Gergely Karacsony, a former pollster and mayor of a Budapest district, headed to a victory with the backing of five left-wing, liberal and Green Parties.
With 90.5% of the votes counted, Karacsony had 50.8%, compared to 44.2% for incumbent Istvan Tarlos, who called to congratulate his rival.
“The campaign is over, now the work begins,” Karacsony told supporters and members of his coalition. “I’d like to put the relationship between Budapest and the government on a new plane. We are readying not for war but for cooperative construction.”
“From tomorrow … we will build a transparent, reputably functioning, Green and solidary city,” Karacsony concluded.
Karacsony also lauded the close cooperation between several of the opposition parties, which he said was the only way forward if they wanted to win the 2022 parliamentary elections.
Tarlos, also a former mayor of one of the capital’s 23 districts, had been leading Budapest since 2010. Nominally an independent, he ran with the backing of Fidesz and its smaller ally, the Christian Democrats. He was gracious in defeat.
“There’s nothing to say. Budapest today made this decision and elected Gergely Karacsony … and I congratulate him,” Tarlos said with Orban standing beside him.
The prime minister emphasized his party’s success in rural areas, acknowledged losing the capital and said Tarlos would become his adviser.