Hungary's EU election: Right and far-right sweep vote
- Published
Viktor Orban is celebrating yet again
The governing right-wing Fidesz party is celebrating another massive victory in Hungary, with nearly 52% of the vote and 12 seats in the European Parliament.
The far-right Jobbik also had cause to celebrate.
"I have important news for you: today Jobbik is the second largest party in Hungary," Gabor Vona, the Jobbik leader told cheering supporters. "The low turnout shows that Hungarians do not believe in the current European Union.
"We all want a common Europe, but a different one to what we have at the moment," he added.
Across the city, a hoarse Prime Minister Viktor Orban told supporters: "We won and we won hugely." Fidesz scored the best result of all members of the centre-right European Peoples Party, and therefore contributed most, relatively speaking, to the EPP victory, he said.
The biggest losers of the election - and the main surprise in Hungary - was the rout of the Socialists. With just below 11%, they barely beat the Democratic Coalition, a splinter group set up by former Socialist Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany, with close to 10%. Each party will have two MEPs.
The leadership of the Socialist Party offered its resignation - to be decided by the party next Saturday. Hungary's Green party, the LMP, just scraped over the 5% threshold and will have one MEP. Only 2.2 million of Hungary's eight million electorate cast their votes.