The novelty of the 2022 parliamentary elections was the broad coalition of opposition parties. The opposition, which was previously divided on the basis of the assessment of the government before 2010 and ideological fault lines, stood with joint candidates in constituencies and a joint party list. The entire coalition corresponded to the will of the majority of voters critical of the government, and the governing parties’ changes to election regulations also favored the establishment of the joint list.
However, the electoral defeat and the larger-than-expected Fidesz advantage in the number of list votes showed that the broad cooperation of opposition parties was not enough for success in itself. After the latest failure, with one or two exceptions, there was no joint action on the part of opposition parties, on the contrary, the dominance of certain parties emerged on the opposition side. However, it is still questionable whether opposition parties will run together in the 2024 local government and European Parliament elections, and whether there will be a primary election during the nomination process.
The following analysis fills a void, insofar as it examines the attitudes of opposition voters with regards to opposition cooperation. We will examine their voting motivations related to the 2022 parliamentary elections, as well as their opinions on opposition cooperation (DK, Jobbik, LMP, Momentum, MSZP, Párbeszéd).
Key results
• In our analysis, we examined how those who voted for the party list of the opposition alliance and the Magyar Kétfarkú Kutyapárt in 2022 think about the cooperation strategies of the opposition parties.
• They are basically divided on whether they principally supported their party (29%) or the unity itself (27%) in 2022.
• Opposition to the regime (45%) was not a political matter, but the main aspect of voting for the opposition coalition.
• European values, belonging to the West, and the protection of democracy together represented a voting aspect for only 15 percent of the respondents.
• After the parliamentary elections, it says a lot about the opposition’s mobilization when their supporters decided who they would vote for; 73 percent of them are returning voters or decided to vote for the opposition more than a month earlier.
• The majority of opposition voters continue to support a joint run for the 2024 local government (60%) and European Parliament elections (62%).
• To a lesser extent, however, the majority of them do not support holding a primary election in the candidate nomination process (53%), the only party where supporters of a primary election are in the majority is the Kétfarkú Kutyapárt (51%).
• According to the overwhelming majority of opposition voters, there are too many parties on the opposition side, and roughly equal proportions approve of the existence of a single strong party (36%) and the merger of some parties (35%).
• However, institutional merger entails conflicts, which ultimately endangers the 2024 election cooperation.
• If opposition parties do not take into account the expectations of opposition voters, it will be more difficult to mobilize their core voters in 2024.
The survey on which the analysis is based was conducted by personal interviews of 2000 people between September 15 and 30, 2022. The interviewees are Hungarian citizens who took part in the April 2022 parliamentary elections and voted for party list of opposition alliance or the MKKP list. The research is representative of Hungarian opposition voters in terms of gender, age, education, and type of residence. The survey's margin of error is 2,2%, the data was collected by Závecz Research.
The complete analysis is available HERE.
Co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.