Even though there was not one poll that found the opposition to be leading before the elections, not one pollster was able to foresee Fidesz-KDNP’s fourth-time, two-thirds victory either, not to mention far-right Mi Hazánk’s unexpected, huge success that took them into Parliament. Similarly, this jaw-dropping defeat of the opposition alliance was also not in the cards, according to the experts and their polls. Roughly speaking, Medián was once again the most accurate.
With around 99% of the votes counted,
- Fidesz-KDNP now stands at 53.1% and would probably claim some 135 +1 mandates (Two more than needed for the two-thirds majority; the plus one belongs to German national representative Imre Ritter, a former Fidesz member, who has exclusively been voting with Fidesz since he has had a seat in Parliament- since 2014).
- The opposition alliance has only claimed 35%, and 57 mandates.
- Far-right Mi Hazánk party has 6.2% and would bag 7 mandates.
- Satirical, government and opposition alliance-critical Two Tailed Dog Party (MKKP) claims 3.2% and 0 mandates.
This means that MKKP is virtually the only one whose result was more or less correctly foreseen by the pollsters.
Medián most accurate pollster once again
As a matter of fact, Medián was the closest to predict this landslide victory: last week, the liberal-leaning pollster’s final projection found that Fidesz would gain 128 seats with the opposition coalition to be confined to 71 mandates.
Not even the pro-Fidesz pollsters, usually more optimistic with the ruling party, could foresee this landslide victory. Társadalomkutató’s survey, conducted between March 21 and 23 proved the most accurate in terms of percentage points, as it had found that Fidesz’s list would garner 52% against 41% for the opposition alliance.
Somewhat less surprisingly, pro-Fidesz pollsters measured Viktor Orbán a lot more popular than Péter Márki-Zay. Századvég, for example found two weeks ago that committed voters who would prefer Viktor Orbán as prime minister outweigh those who back Péter Márki-Zay by almost 2:1.
In the final polls made before the ballot, Századvég was the closest, predicting around 49% for Fidesz, and 44% for the opposition alliance, while MKKP and Mi Hazánk were each at 4%.
Fact
It is important to note that high, over 50% predictions wouldn’t have necessarily meant a two-thirds majority in terms of seats- this was due to their unexpectedly excellent results in the single-member constituencies. And the two-thirds majority was not foreseen by any of them despite the optimistic predictions in terms of percentage points.Nézőpont’s (usually the most accurate among the pro-Fidesz think-tanks) leader Ágoston Sámuel Mráz, even some minutes before the first results were published, explained at left-wing Partizán’s election results event that although he expected a clear Fidesz victory, a two-thirds victory is not likely. Nézőpont regularly put Fidesz popularity under 50%.
In addition, another pro-Fidesz institute, the Center for Fundamental Rights, calculated between 110 and 120 mandates to be won by Fidesz out of 199 seats.
The left-liberal pollsters, such as Republikon, Závecz, and Publicus were the least accurate, as during the last week preceding the ballots, they all found Fidesz’s lead to be within the margin of error. On Saturday (after we had published our final summary on the poll results), Publicus even published a survey that put the two major forces neck-and-neck.
Far-right’s resurrection was not in the cards either
It must be noted that although there were certain analysts (such as Átlátszó‘s centrist pundit, András Hont) before the ballot to point out that small parties are usually under-measured (as a result speculating that either Mi Hazánk or MKKP, or even both could jump over the threshold, Mi Hazánk’s success was not foreseen either.
Medián was the only one to have most accurately seen into the future, as three months ago they put Mi Hazánk over 5% both in the total population and among committee voters (although they did so with MKKP, too). Afterwards, however, not one pollster found them to be above 5%. The closest recent poll found the radical party to be around 4% among committed voters (liberal IDEA), and not one recent seat estimations predicted them to jump over the threshold.
Fact
In fact, the László Toroczkai-led party built his campaign on the criticism of coronavirus vaccination and restrictions. At the beginning of March, however, the government revoked all the restrictions, which many thought would have knocked the wind out of the radical party’s sails.Fidesz-KDNP, on the other hand, is usually overestimated. Well, this was apparently not the case this time, as the ruling forces were badly underestimated by all.
featured image via János Vajda/MTI
