BUDAPEST (Reuters) – Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party was ahead with 43.8% of votes during Sunday’s European Parliament election, partial results showed, putting it on track for its worst result in a national or EU vote in nearly two decades.
In power since 2010, the veteran nationalist Orban has grappled with multiple crises over the past months as a sex abuse scandal brought down two of his key allies, just as Hungary was emerging from the worst inflationary surge in the European Union.
Initial results projected Orban’s Fidesz winning 11 seats in the European Parliament, with Peter Magyar’s opposition Tisza coming second with seven seats at 31% of votes, a better outcome than any of the polls leading up to the election forecast.
Orban’s Fidesz and its small Christian Democrat allies had a combined 13 seats in the European Parliament prior to Sunday’s vote.
A political newcomer, Magyar swooped into Hungarian politics earlier this year, promising to root out corruption and revive democratic checks and balances in Hungary, which critics say have been eroded under Orban.
“It will be obvious for all Hungarian people that now we have a new situation, a new opposition party, which will be able to defeat this government,” Magyar told reporters on Sunday.
Orban was expected to address supporters later on Sunday.
(Reporting by Anita Komuves and Gergely Szakacs; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
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