Orban party loses major support in Hungary's EU election

Viktor Orban’s right-wing Fidesz party won big at Hungary’s 2024 EU elections on Sunday, but lost major support.

The Hungarian Prime Minister’s ultra-nationalist party received the most votes (44%) and will have 11 MEPs. However, it also experienced great losses, dropping a whopping 11% compared to the 2022 general election results. This result is the party’s biggest defeat in 18 years.

Still, Orban, 61, was buoyed by the news, claiming the election results affirmed his government.

“To sum up the result of the European parliamentary election we can resume it best as a telegram that sounds like this: Migration full stop. Gender full stop. War full stop. Soros full stop, Brussels full stop,” he said.

Orban’s government has been hit with multiple scandals, including a sex abuse scandal that resulted in several key members of his party resigning.

Fidesz’s traditional opponents, including the social-democrat and green parties, only received eight percent of votes and did not meet the threshold for entry in European Parliament.

The threat of Tisza

But a new political contender formed a few months ago, Tisza, scored a mammoth 29% of votes and scooped seven seats, becoming a clear opposition force for Orbán’s anti-left and anti-Brussels agenda.

The party is headed by former-Fidesz-insider-turned-rival Péter Magyar, who said on Monday that the election results are “very clear”.

“Fidesz only has one but very potent rival for the next national elections: our Tisza party,” he said.

Magyar, 43, has told [**local media**](Magyar, 43, has attracted big crowds to rallies at which he has accused the government of corruption and running a propaganda machine.) that he aims for his party to be firmly centrist and operate on a platform of anti-corruption and improving Hungarian’s quality of life.

Hungary is due to take over the six-month presidency of the Council of the EU in July.