1.5 for 2

About 70 days ago – when President János Áder set the date of Hungary’s 2014 general election for 6 April – the staff at The Budapest Times was daring enough to call the election right then. Here’s what we said on 24 January: CNN screwed it up in 2000 by calling the US election for Al Gore and they have been rather cautious ever since. The Budapest Times is not like that. After some serious drill-down analysis and careful examination of polling data we are ready to make a projection: Fidesz (and KDNP) will win the election and get a governing majority in Parliament. OK, the first is a no-brainer, but with the opposition finding common ground, the second could actually be interesting.  Judging by the latest polls (see page 14) we could say that it looks like we are going to be batting 2 for 2, but it’s more 1.5 for 2. While it’s technically true that Fidesz will most likely win the election and get enough votes for a governing – perhaps even two-thirds – majority, you can tell that we thought that the left was going to put up a bigger fight and at least give Orbán a little bit of a run for his money. They didn’t. In fact some pollsters even go as far as saying that Jobbik might actually be able to put some pressure on the leftist alliance. So it looks like Viktor Orbán will become the first PM who can start to set up a new government after having served a full term.