There are expected and unexpected features of the Hungarian EP election results. Expected are the low turnout (though looking around 36% might relatively not even be that low, as a matter of fact it is high amount Central and Eastern European countries) and the low result of the currently governing coalition: the two parties together got less than 20% of the total votes. It was expected that such a law confidence toward the presently governing coalition will raise the voices of forcing early elections. I do believe we will see protests and rough political fights in the upcoming months. But I also agree with analysts that we will probably not see an early election though. Especially that the leading opposition party had rejected to join the far-right party in street demonstrations. And especially that early elections would be a political suicidal for the parties of the present coalition and strictly speaking based on the present composition of the Hungarian parliament they do possess the legitimate position to stay in power. (For more opinions see also views that think the probability of early elections has raised.)

The low support rate of the liberal party was also expected, they received little over 2% of the votes. This can be a catastrophe for them and will probably indicate their fallout of the parliament in the upcoming 2010 Hungarian elections. Expected was that the leading opposition party will win more than half of the 22 EP seats (they have managed to get 14 at the end). The Hungarian Democratic Forum’s 1 seat might not be expected for everyone, but I would defiantly not call it a very unexpected result.

Unexpected is that the far-right party received one in every seven vote, almost making it to the second place of the election. Getting 14% of the votes and acquiring 3 seats in EP is a strong social and political signal to all. General economic crises are historically a good ground for extremist parties to gain momentum. This was topped by the fact that the party “Jobbik” has address socially controversial question that other parties did not dare to touch. No matter how transparently populist (some would even say demagogic) their messages are, there seem to be a solid recipient ground for these in Hungary nowadays. And honestly speaking some of their initiatives do address valid problems. This is bad news for all other parties, if nothing else even from a political tactical standpoint:
- they “stole” votes from the leading opposition party, which might have got even stronger if weren’t for them;
- they almost beat the governing socialist party, if they keep the momentum they might even do so in 2010;
- they took the third power rank from the two small parties, the liberals and the Hungarian Democratic Forum.
It is hard to justify the social impact for the upcoming months just yet and far-right parties are getting somewhat stronger throughout Europe, not just Hungary. But I do believe that trying to reduce the popularity of Jobbik will be the top priority for all other parties. The 2010 parliamentary election will probably have a higher turnout, which is bad news for small parties, but even with their present absolute vote count they would easily make it to the parliament.

Also unexpected is the relatively good position of a party called “Politics can be different” party, which tries to build on many peoples frustration about the Hungarian political sphere. They got more votes than the liberals, still this wasn’t enough to get over the 5% limit to get an EP seat. Anyhow, lets see how they capitalize on their small victory.

Details results can be found on election.hu, unfortunately most content is Hungarian, but the smart-charts are easy to figure out. Also see portfoli.hu’s full review of the results and the election.