UPDATE - Hungarian prime minister claims ‘great victory’ in general election

ADDS MORE INFO ON ELECTION, REFERENDUM, REMARKS FROM ORBAN AND OTHER HUNGARIAN PARTY LEADERS, BACKGROUND

By Merve Berker and Mehmet Yilmaz

ANKARA (AA) – Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban claimed a “great victory” in the country’s general elections, local media outlets reported Sunday.

Orban won a fourth consecutive term as prime minister with about 86% of the votes counted.

His Fidesz-KDNP coalition was also on track to increase its parliamentary majority by winning 135 seats in the 199-member parliament, crushing the United Front For Hungary, a six-party opposition coalition led by Peter Marki-Zay that united to form a common front aimed at ousting him.

Instead, the ruling party retained its two-thirds supermajority, which has enabled it to reshape the country’s politics and social policy during its 12 years in power.

The popular vote margin was 53.7% for Fidesz-KDNP compared with 34.4% for the United Front For Hungary, which conceded defeat Sunday night.

“The entire world can see that our brand of Christian democratic, conservative, patriotic politics has won,” Orban said. “We are sending Europe a message that this is not the past – this is the future.”

“This victory is one to remember, maybe even for the rest of our lives, because we had the biggest (range of opponents to) overpower,” he stressed.

Thanking Hungarian citizens who voted for him for all the support, he said this is a “great victory”, adding: “We had a victory that can even be seen from the Moon. It can be seen from Brussels for sure.”

In his victory speech, he also mentioned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has criticized him for not supporting Ukraine enough in Russia’s ongoing war on the country.

He singled out Zelenskyy as part of the "overwhelming force" he said his party had struggled against in the election — "the left at home, the international left all around, the Brussels bureaucrats, the Soros empire with all its money, the international mainstream media, and in the end, even the Ukrainian president."

-Disappointment, sadness

Admitting defeat in the election, Marki-Zay underlined that he was “devastated” and attributed its scale to Fidesz-KDNP’s gerrymandering methods and other changes to the voting system while he was in office.

“I don’t want to hide my disappointment and my sadness. We never expected this to be the result,” he said.

“We knew beforehand that this was going to be an imbalanced fight. Yes, they’ve cheated too. But we’ve also said that since there is no democracy in Hungary and they’ve changed the whole system, the districts,” he added.

-Referendum

A referendum on a legal regulation described by the opposition as a "homophobic law" and by the government as a "child protection law” to which many European Union countries reacted strongly, which banned all content "encouraging" those under 18 to embrace homosexuality and sex changes, was invalid by failing to exceed the 50% threshold.

The questions that were asked to citizens on the referendum were as follows: “Do you support the provision of sexual orientation classes in schools to underage children without the consent of parents? Do you support introducing a sex reassignment operation to underage children? Do you support the display of sexual content that affects the development of children in the media without any restrictions? Do you support the publication of images promoting gender reassignment in the media?”

Orban's fourth term could also pose a possible conundrum for NATO and the EU amid growing concerns about Hungary's attitude toward Russia's ongoing war on Ukraine and whether it is a reliable alliance partner.

Although he has so far not tried to block sanctions and military responses to the war, he has signaled his reluctance to consider measures that would reduce Russian oil and gas supplies.

Orban has also refused to allow arms supplies to Ukraine or allow military aid to pass through Hungarian territory, angering NATO allies and Zelenskyy, who describes him as “Putin's only European backer.”

The Russian war against Ukraine, which started on Feb. 24, has been met with international outrage, with the European Union, US and UK among others implementing tough financial sanctions on Moscow.

At least 1,417 civilians have been killed in Ukraine and 2,038 injured, according to UN estimates, with the true figure feared to be far higher.

More than 4.1 million Ukrainians have also fled to other countries, with millions more internally displaced, according to the UN refugee agency.