A pro-government commentator claims that the opposition primary is a stunt orchestrated by Ferenc Gyurcsány. A liberal columnist commenting on the preliminary results thinks that if Klára Dobrev wins in the second round as well, the opposition is unlikely to defeat Fidesz in the April election.

The first round of the opposition primary ended on Tuesday. The electoral committee of the opposition planned to announce the results by Wednesday afternoon, the final vote count was finally announced after midnight on Thursday evening. 634,000 votes were cast, nearly twice as many as opposition parties had expected. Klára Dobrev came first with 34.8 per cent,  followed by Gergely Karácsony 27.3 per cent and Péter Márki-Zay 20.4 per cent. The two remaining candidates will not make it to the second round due in mid-October. Opposition voters also chose their single candidates in all the 106 individual constituencies. DK won the highest number of nominations (33), while Jobbik came in second (with 29 candidates).

Magyar Nemzet’s Ottó Gajdics thinks that the opposition primary is a joke. The pro-government commentator emphasizes the problems, firstly the crash of the online voting system on 18 September (see BudaPost September 21), then the slow count – the opposition was unable to count all the votes as planned by Wednesday afternoon. Gajdics suggests that the primary is just a stunt orchestrated by former PM Gyurcsány, who holds the strings in the background and orchestrates the opposition’s strategy in order to win back power through proxies.

On 444.hu, Péter Magyari is not at all surprised by Klára Dobrev’s victory in the first round of the primary. The liberal pundit recalls that the Democratic Coalition has been the most popular opposition party, and therefore it could mobilize voters to supports its candidate. He nonetheless thinks that in the 2022 April election the opposition will have little chance to defeat Fidesz if it is led by Ms Dobrev, so the main question in the second round of the primary will be if she can be defeated by Gergely Karácsony or Péter Márki-Zay.