Speculation on the opposition’s chances

The political analyst Gábor Török finds it unlikely that in the few remaining few weeks until the April election any of the opposition parties could become popular enough to challenge Fidesz. He does not rule out, however, the strategic coordination of opposition votes in single-seat districts.

Political analyst Gábor Török deems a Fidesz defeat in the April Parliamentary election highly unlikely. The governing party has successfully created a strong base that neither the Left, nor the radical right-wing Jobbik could challenge, Török notes. He goes on to point out that in light of the polls, Fidesz is to win the election, unless its support suffers a sudden and significant drop, or a dominant opposition party emerges, or voters decide to cast their ballot strategically, and support the most popular single-seat candidate in each district. Török rules out the first two possibilities. As for coordinated voting in single-seat districts, Török suspects that Jobbik’s rebranding as a more centrist party may make such cooperation between the Left and Jobbik feasible. This strategy could theoretically enable the opposition parties to prevent Fidesz from gaining enough seats to govern, Török speculates, acknowledging that even this option is only speculative, and so far, there is no indication of such plans within the leadership of the opposition parties.

Tags: 2018, Fidesz, Jobbik, opposition