Surveys revealing the approval ratings of Hungary’s political parties in May indicated a change in trends, but there was still no turnaround in terms of the popularity of the parties. The average of the three main pollsters shows that the governing Fidesz party continues to have a huge lead over the others.
The approval rating of the Fidesz party dropped slightly from a 20-month high in May among eligible voters, according to the average rating of the three main local pollsters - Ipsos, Medián and Tárki. The governing party would receive 25.3% of the votes in this group, whereas the decrease in the main opposition Socialist Party’s (MSZP) popularity observed in the past four months appears to be lasting (13.3%).
Support for the far-right nationalist Jobbik party declined slightly, but this smaller attraction is clear at the individual findings of all three pollsters too. The situation of former Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai’s Együtt 2014 (Together 2014) appears to be stabilizing, although its 5% approval rating would be just enough to make it to Parliament. In order to have a go at sending the current government packing Bajnai still does not pack enough punch; he would need to gain support by a lot more people undecided voters on the left side of the political arena.
The last statement gets an even stronger foundation when we look at how many votes the E14 and the Socialists would have were they to come together (hypothetically). The approval rating of Fidesz has been improving constantly since the autumn of 2012 therefore the appearance of the new political rival could turn the balances of forces around only briefly. Since then the gap has been widening up until last month; only the May figures show that this process has stopped.
The changes may appear to be stronger than this if we observe the approval ratings of the parties among decided voters with a firm party preference. (Note, however, that in this regard the pollsters may apply different methodologies.) Support for the Fidesz party dropped moderately, whereas the MSZP recorded a higher approval rating, just like Bajnai’s E14. The 14% approval rating for the extremist Jobbik party in this category marks a nearly two-year low.
The combined approval rating for the Socialists and E14 among decided voters shows a smaller lead of Fidesz than among eligible voters. At the same time the six percentage point difference can still be considered significant even if we set aside the obvious uncertainties of methodology when adding popularity indices.
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