The strangest electoral system in the world. Five non-obvious things you need to know about the Hungarian elections

Photo: Akos Stiller / Bloomberg via Getty Images, Jonathan Ernst — Pool / Getty Images

But in Hungary, a country with a unique electoral system, widespread distrust of sociologists, and a vote-counting process stretched over a week, there are important nuances.

The BBC explains the specifics of the Hungarian elections — things that must be taken into account when observing the final stretch of the most important elections currently taking place in Europe.

First: beware of polls

The results of pre-election sociological surveys give radically different forecasts for the outcome of Sunday's vote.

Independent sociological centers predict a confident victory for the Tisza party. At the same time, pro-government media, which dominate the Hungarian media space, publish poll data conducted by centers close to the government, according to which Viktor Orbán's party will retain a majority in parliament.

On the one hand, the experience of previous election campaigns suggests that in this case, independent centers are more trustworthy. On the other hand, Budapest experts interviewed by the BBC express a number of caveats on this matter.

Firstly, a characteristic of this campaign is an unusually high percentage of refusals to answer questions from sociologists conducting surveys. One interlocutor stated that during some political polls, up to three-quarters of respondents refused to communicate with pollsters. Of course, sociological science has developed methods to compensate for the lack of their voices, but the accuracy of the polls certainly does not increase from this.

Secondly, it is believed that certain segments of Hungarian society are traditionally "underrepresented" by sociologists. This refers primarily to residents of the provinces, specifically to voters with the lowest levels of education and well-being. Experts note in passing: it is believed that in these circles, Viktor Orbán is the most popular politician.

Thirdly, the opposition and independent journalists claim that on the eve of the elections, the government launched a massive system of voter bribery. The authors of the investigation "The Price of a Vote," published at the end of March, assert that if the scheme works, Orbán's party will be able to slightly adjust its result upwards.

On the other hand, sociologists interviewed by journalists record some growth in Tisza's indicators in the last couple of weeks before the elections. Interlocutors explain this trend by the fact that it is precisely in the final stretch that voters who previously had difficulty answering questions about their preferences begin to make their choice. Their share was estimated by sociologists at about a third of the total number of voters just a month ago. Even then, there were speculations that these people were more likely to be opponents of the current government.

How the action of all these factors will overlap is very difficult to predict, so it is definitely not worth congratulating the winner of the Hungarian elections in advance.

Павялічыць

Pro-government election billboard in Budapest with portraits of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Hungarian opposition leader Péter Magyar with the captions "They are dangerous" and "Let's stop them. Simply Fidesz." Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Second: understand the system

The Hungarian parliamentary elections are held under a unique system that has no analogues in the world. It, as independent observers claim, was specifically calibrated to give the Fidesz party an additional advantage in absolute compliance with the law.

Most of the deputies — 106 out of 199 — are elected in single-mandate constituencies by a relative majority of votes, meaning in a single-round election.

The specificity of the Hungarian majoritarian system lies in the way constituencies are "carved up." The general pattern is that provincial, rural constituencies typically have fewer voters than those located within large cities. In essence, this means that to obtain a parliamentary mandate, a candidate running in the provinces needs to gather fewer votes than one running in the city. In other words, the vote of one provincial voter in this system weighs more than the vote of a capital resident.

This characteristic of the system clearly plays into the hands of the Fidesz party, whose positions in villages and small towns in Hungary are considered particularly strong, while in Budapest, for example, they leave much to be desired.

The remaining 93 parliamentary mandates are distributed among parties that have overcome the five-percent electoral threshold. Moreover, they are distributed not simply proportionally, but taking into account a rather complex system of compensatory votes.

To simplify the description greatly, it consists of adding to the votes a specific party received on party lists all votes cast for candidates nominated by that party who ran in single-mandate constituencies but lost.

Such a system is applied in certain countries around the world, but the Hungarian specificity is that "bonus" votes from each specific constituency are received not only by parties whose candidates lost, but also by the party that nominated the winning candidate. To the result of its party list, the difference between the number of votes received by the winner and the result of their closest challenger is added.

Thanks to this legislative provision, the party that won in a majoritarian constituency wins twice: it not only sends its deputy to parliament but also adds to the party list's coffers a portion of the votes cast for them.

According to calculations by the Budapest-based Political Capital center, the application of this provision in the last parliamentary elections brought Fidesz five additional parliamentary mandates. This means that without it, Orbán's party would not have been able to form a constitutional majority in the current parliament.

Understanding this system is indeed quite complex. But the main conclusions to be drawn from its practical application are simple.

Firstly, the majoritarian component of Hungarian elections is more important than the party-list component. Not only are most deputies elected in single-mandate constituencies, but the results of the majoritarian part of the elections also strongly influence their proportional part.

Secondly, due to this circumstance, party ratings published before the elections may not reflect the balance of power in the future parliament. Moreover, the party whose list shows the highest result in the proportional part of the elections will not necessarily obtain a majority in the new parliament.

Thirdly, the peculiarities of the Hungarian system lead to a situation where the process of counting votes and determining the winner of the elections can be long and tedious. This time — possibly even a week.

Third: don't expect quick results

Let's state upfront: if the advantage of one of the participating parties over its competitor is huge, champagne will be opened in its office on election night. Trust in the institution of elections in Hungary is quite high, and despite the high level of political polarization in society, the possibility of widespread falsifications specifically on election day is not seriously considered.

However, if the results of the favorites are quite close, the final outcome will have to be awaited for quite a long time.

Because here another feature of Hungarian elections comes into play — remote voting.

The fact is that foreign voters who have retained a Hungarian registration address receive two ballots and vote not only for a party list but also for a majoritarian candidate in their home constituency.

The same applies to those voters who have registered to vote within Hungary but outside their own constituency.

The "trick" of the Hungarian electoral system is that votes cast at foreign polling stations and outside the "home" constituency are not counted immediately after these stations close. These ballots are packed and sent to Budapest, and from there, they are dispatched to the regions.

In other words, the electoral commission in, say, Debrecen, first counts the votes cast on election day locally. And then — it waits for ballots of Hungarians who voted in Miskolc, Szeged, London, New York, and who knows where else, to be delivered from Budapest, counts these votes, and adjusts the initial result accordingly.

Legislation states that this final count must take place no later than the sixth day after the "main elections." That is, in our case, no later than Saturday, April 18.

This year, a record number of voters registered to vote from abroad and outside their electoral constituency, and this could significantly affect the final election results.

Just this Wednesday, Tisza party leader Péter Magyar stated that in approximately 30-40 majoritarian constituencies, the difference between the leading candidates in the electoral race is within a thousand votes, so the intensity of emotions in the post-election period will be incredible.

"In those constituencies where, on election night, the Fidesz party candidate will have a slight advantage, it can be assumed that the situation will change by April 18, as voters who vote in embassies and outside their electoral constituencies are generally critical of the Orbán government," explained Robert László, an expert at the Budapest analytical center Political Capital, to the Kyiv publication "European Pravda."

And given the influence that majoritarian election results have on the proportional part of the elections, a scenario is technically possible where even an approximate distribution of mandates in the future Hungarian parliament will be difficult to model until April 18.

Fourth: don't forget about the third party

What you can occupy yourself with while waiting for April 18 is to monitor voter turnout on election day.

Among other things, it will determine whether only Fidesz and Tisza will be represented in the next parliament, or if a third party will join them.

Indeed, observers of the Hungarian elections often overlook the fact that not only the parties of Viktor Orbán and Péter Magyar are participating in the campaign. In addition to them, voters will find the left-wing Democratic Coalition, the satirical Two-Tailed Dog Party, and the far-right Mi Hazánk (Our Homeland) on the ballots.

And while the results of the first two parties are hovering on the edge of statistical error, the ultra-right, according to some polls, have a chance to overcome the five-percent electoral threshold.

That's why, Budapest experts say, the turnout factor becomes so important. Roughly speaking, supporters of "Our Homeland" are a rather politically isolated, mobilized, but numerically limited group of voters. And this party's overcoming of the five-percent threshold depends on how many voters from other parties participate in the election.

In other words, a super-high turnout in a polarized society will most likely lead to the dilution of "Our Homeland's" result and the formation of a two-party parliament in Hungary.

Theoretically, the ultra-right faction could become the "kingmaker" in the future Hungarian parliament, especially if neither Fidesz nor Tisza can achieve an absolute majority in the elections.

On the one hand, "Our Homeland," which advocates for Hungary's withdrawal from the EU, is ideologically closer to Viktor Orbán's Eurosceptic position. On the other hand, it is not excluded that in such a case, the ultra-right might decide to "rock the boat" and build their political game on the expectation of an ineffective newly elected parliament, the appointment of early elections, and achieving a more convincing result in them.

Fifth: the end is just the beginning

Nevertheless, the most likely outcome of the elections today can be called the acquisition of a majority by either Viktor Orbán's Fidesz or Péter Magyar's Tisza.

And while the continuation of the current Hungarian Prime Minister's rule is unlikely to bring any shocks to the country — let's put aside possible post-election opposition protests, that's a topic for another discussion — many expect immediate fundamental changes in Hungarian life from Tisza's coming to power and Péter Magyar's election as head of government.

Their expectations may not be met, and this is another characteristic of the political system's design, built over years of Viktor Orbán's rule.

The fact is that, according to the Hungarian constitution, many key aspects of the country's life — from family policy to the work of the National Bank and from the pension system to local self-government — are regulated by special "cardinal laws," which can only be changed by a constitutional majority of parliament members, two-thirds of its members.

Today, Péter Magyar claims that his Tisza party has a chance to achieve such a result: its supporters simply must, despite fatigue, work until the last day of the campaign.

Moreover, a poll by the sociological firm Median, published recently, calls Tisza's obtaining two-thirds of the mandates realistic (Orbán's chief of staff Gergely Gulyás immediately accused the sociologists of falsification, stating that their lies would become apparent the day after the elections).

However, observers in Budapest are already wondering how Péter Magyar will behave if the parliamentary majority he obtains is not constitutional but ordinary: will he try to work with "limited functionality," or will he opt for early elections to try to reach a new political peak on the wave of success?

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