Hungary election closes with landmark voter participation
Viktor Orbán (photo: Getty Images)
By Sunday evening, April 12, polling stations in Hungary closed for the parliamentary elections, with a historic turnout record set among Hungarian voters, according to Telex.
The outlet reports that voting ended at 7:00 PM at 10,047 polling stations across 3,154 settlements nationwide and in 23 districts of Budapest.
At the same time, people who were still in line were allowed to cast their votes.
Meanwhile, the National Election Committee published data showing that turnout as of 6:30 PM stood at 77.80%. This means that 5.856 million people had voted in the election.
Telex notes that the absolute turnout record set in 2002 was broken just two hours before the polling stations closed. By 5:00 PM, more than 74% of voters (5.5 million people) had already voted.
In the 2022 elections, turnout by 6:30 PM stood at 67.8%.
Who could win
In this election, the main contenders for parliamentary seats are the opposition Tisza party of Péter Magyar and the ruling party of incumbent Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
According to a 21 Research Center poll conducted from April 8 to 11, Magyar's Tisza party could defeat Orbán's Fidesz.
The results show that Tisza could receive 55% of the vote, which would translate into 132 parliamentary seats, which is just one seat short of a constitutional majority. Orbán's party is projected to receive only 38%, equal to 61 seats.
21 Research Center poll (photo: telex.hu)
Whether the poll results will come true will be known very soon. The first results from polling stations are expected to begin appearing around 9:00 or 10:00 PM EEST.
