Popularity of Hungary's ruling Fidesz party collapses, there's no denying it

Portfolio has been applying this methodology for a long time, i.e. to keep track of how the approval rating of political parties changed by averaging the results of the three large pollsters (Ipsos, Tárki, Medián).

We did not do any different with the latest findings. We should note that the surveys were taken in different periods, which is interesting in the present case because the later the polls were conducted the worse the outcome was for the governing party. (We should also note that the pollsters do not conduct such political surveys every month so for the sake of the continuity of the time series we have supplemented the data by averaging the results of the preceding and the subsequent periods.)

The indicators conceived by the averages of the November polls are shown in the chart below. The approval rating of Fidesz among eligible voters shows a major drop, on which the other parties could capitalise hardly or not at all. The potential voters mostly increased the group of undecided voters.

The chart does not contain the latest findings of Ipsos that were published on Thursday. But now there are four surveys confirming the drastic loss of popularity of Fidesz over the past month or so.

The previous Ipsos poll (the results of which were used by us) was conducted in early November, while Tárki and Medián asked people about their political affiliations in late November, therefore the results of the early December Ipsos survey are closer to the latter two.

If we take the averages of the approval ratings at the three pollsters (two from end-Nov and one from early December) we can average statuses that are closer to each other in time. This shows 25% approval rating for Fidesz among eligible voters, trailed by far-right nationalist party Jobbik at 14%, the Socialist Party (MSZP) at 11% - which means that no matter how much appeal Fidesz is losing the left cannot capitalise on it -, followed by the Democratic Coalition and LMP (3% each) and Együtt with 2%.

Let’s see how things were in April

It is worth comparing the above results with the approval ratings in early April, just before the election. Since then Fidesz has lost almost one third of its supporters, as back then its approval rating still was as high as 36% among eligible voters. On this comparison the MSZP shows no improvement at all, but the approval rating of Jobbik and LMP also practically stagnated.

(As regards the Socialist Party we have to note, however, that there is no specific data for April, because at that time the pollsters were gauging the popularity of left-wing joint forces, which included this party too. At the same time, data from before and after April suggest that the formation and dissolution of the alliance left the party’s popularity unfazed, i.e. our assumption for April cannot be dead wrong.)

Finally, we should also note that despite the considerable decrease in its approval rating Fidesz has still not reached its lowest point in this respect of the past five years. One year before the elections its popularity stood at 25%, and then it had been rising for a year from its rock bottom reached in the spring of 2012 at 18%.

• Tags:
• fidesz,
• median,
• poll,
• economy,
• survey,
• ipsos,
• tárki