Newly appointed Prime Minister Viktor Orbán speaking outside the Hungarian Parliament Building in Budapest shortly after the landslide Fidesz victory in the 2010 National Assembly election.

The Fidesz–Christian Democratic People’s Party (KDNP) electoral alliance won a landslide victory in Hungary’s 2010 National Assembly election, gaining 68.1 percent of the 386 seats in the legislature.

The resulting Fidesz-KDNP super majority in the National Assembly enabled the party alliance to enact or amend legislation—both that requiring a simple majority for approval as well as Cardinal Laws requiring a two-thirds majority for approval—and to adopt a new constitution (called the Fundamental Law) without support from the opposition over the subsequent four-year parliamentary cycle.

Hungary’s 2010 National Assembly election was held in two rounds, the first on April 11 and the second on April 25. Four parties—the Fidesz-KDNP alliance, the Hungarian Socialist Party, Jobbik and the liberal-green party Politics Can Be Different—surpassed the five-percent composite voting threshold in individual electoral districts as well as territorial and national party-lists necessary to gain seats in the National Assembly.

Voter participation was 64.2 percent in the first round and 46.6 percent in the second round of the National Assembly election, the sixth held in Hungary since the country’s transition to democracy in 1990.

Electoral districts won in 2010 National Assembly election: orange=Fidesz; gray=independent; red (within map of Budapest)=Hungarian Socialist Party.

Candidates from the Fidesz-KDNP alliance defeated opposition rivals in 173 of 176 individual electoral-districts in Hungary. Hungarian Socialist Party candidates were victorious in two individual electoral-districts in the country—both of them located in the traditionally working-class Angyalföld district in the northern section of the Pest side of Budapest. A Jobbik-supported independent candidate won the remaining individual electoral-district located in northeastern Hungary.

The Fidesz-KDNP alliance won 90 of 210 seats distributed from territorial and national party-lists, while the Hungarian Socialist Party won 57 seats, Jobbik won 47 seats and Politics Can Be Different won 16 seats.

The Fidesz-KDNP alliance won 68.2 percent of all seats in the National Assembly on 52.7 percent of all votes cast in the first and second rounds of the election, while the Hungarian Socialist Party won 15.3 percent of seats on 19.3 percent of the vote, Jobbik won 12.2 percent of seats on 16.7 percent of the vote and Politics Can Be Different won 4.2 percent of seats on 7.5 percent of the vote.

Seats in the National Assembly following the 2010 National Assembly election: turquoise=Politics Can Be Different; pink=Jobbik; red=Hungarian Socialist Party; orange=Fidesz-KDNP.

Other parties that qualified to participate in the 2010 National Assembly election, though failed to surpass the five-percent threshold necessary to gain seats in the legislature, won the remaining 3.8 percent of all votes cast in the elections.

The Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF), the leading party in Hungary’s first post-communist National Assembly from 1990 to 1994 and a member of the Fidesz governing coalition at the time of the first Orbán government from 1998 to 2002, was the most notable party that failed to reach the five-percent threshold in the 2010 National Assembly election.

The Workers’ Party (Munkáspárt), the legal successor to the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party that ruled Hungary from 1956 until 1989, won 0.11 percent of total votes cast in the 2010 National Assembly election. The Workers’ Party has not come close to surpassing the five-percent representation-threshold in any of Hungary’s post-communist elections. 

Last updated: May 26, 2016.