Economy 4 April 2022, 10:45am

How did Hungary's Fidesz-KDNP win supermajority again?

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Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has won his fourth consecutive term in Sunday's parliamentary election, securing nearly 68% of the 199 seats for his ruling Fidesz-KDNP coalition in Parliament. How did he do it? Did two-thirds of Hungary's eligible voters, five million people, cast their ballott on Fidesz? Well, not quite.

Hungary’s electoral system in numbers. Election 2022. Democracy at its best.

Fidesz-KDNP wins supermajority, with 135 seats in the 199-seat Parliament, i.e. with 67.84% of the mandates.
The runner-up is United for Hungary, a united front of six opposition parties. It wins 56 seats, which translates into 28.14% of all mandates.
Far-right Our Homeland (Mi Hazánk) wins 7 seats or 3.52%.

Let’s see the math behind this "huge victory"

a victory so big that you can see it from the moon, but certainly from Brussels,

as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán described it late on Sunday.

Turnout:

There are 7,536,306 eligible voters in Hungary.

5,241,029 of them (69.54%) cast their ballot.

Votes for the parties:

2,735,383 people or 52.19% voted for Fidesz-KDNP.

Fidesz-KDNP won 135 seats or 67.84% of the 199 seats in Parliament.

52.19% = 67.84% --- ratio: 130%

1,804,995 people or 34.44% voted for United for Hungary.

United for Hungary won 56 seats or 28.14% of the 199 seats in Parliament.

34.44% = 28.14% ---- ratio: 81.7%

317,944 people or 6.07% voted for Our Homeland.

Our Homeland won 7 seats or 3.52% of the 199 seats in Parliament.

6.07% = 3.52% ---- ratio: 58%

Let’s take a look at the system from another point of view.

While the United for Hungary bloc had 66% of the votes Fidesz-KDNP had, it won only 41.5% of the seats the ruling coalition secured.

Also, Our Homeland had 11.6% of the votes Fidesz-KDNP had, it will have only 5.2% of the mandates Fidesz-KDNP will have.

Yes, it's a complex system for sure. There's a national party list and individual votes that both translate into parliamentary seats. The distribution between these two was as follows:

Fidesz-KDNP: 47 from the national list, 88 from individual constituencies
United for Hungary: 38 + 18
Our Homeland: 7 + 0

This means Fidesz-KDNP won 34.8% of its mandates from the national list and 65.2% from votes for individual candadates, which compares with 67.9% + 32.1% for United for Hungary and 100% + 0% for Our Homeland.

These are just numbers. Drawing the conclusions is up to you.