Zoltán Ranschburg, of the Republikon Institute of Budapest, spoke to foreign journalists on 18th of November. The following is slighly edited version of his opening remarks.
Photo: Zoltán Ranschburg, Senior Analyst at the liberal-leaning Republikon Institute
Péter Magyar, his Tisza Party & the Polls
According to the latest political polls by virtually all pollsters, and we might go into the exceptions later*, the Tisza Party [founded and led by Péter Magyar] has either reached Fidesz in levels of support or, according to some polls, it has actually become more supported than the government parties.
This hasn't happened to Fidesz in 14 years, that is has been defeated in any poll by a single party.
It happened with the united opposition had some good days in 2021, after the primaries for the 2022 parliamentary elections. There were a couple of days or weeks when the united opposition was measured at least at the same level as Fidesz, but to have one party that polls better than Fidesz, if I'm not mistaken, it hasn't happened for 14 or even 15 years, so it's a really interesting development. It means that something is going on in Hungarian politics.
The last time we met was after the European Parliamentary elections this early summer. In those elections, Tisza got roughly 30% of the votes, which was a fantastic achievement, because the party had only been founded a couple of months before.
At that point, as I remember, we spoke about the potential of Tisza to grow further, how far this adventure of Péter Magyar could go. We saw that 30% is not the top, that Tisza Party is still in growth, of course, there is a curve, it's flattening, so its growth rates are not as fast as they were, that's quite natural …
So, it's flattening, but we are still unsure how far Tisza can go on this journey. What we've seen is continuous growth from Tisza's side.
According to Republikon's latest polls, on the website, this poll was carried out in October, and according to this, among party voters, Fidesz is at 36% and Tisza was at 34%. So there, Fidesz was in the lead, but within the margin of error.
And since we published this poll in October, two further polls have come out, one from Median and one from IDEA institute, and they both polled Tisza to be in the lead, so in their polls, Tisza is stronger than Fidesz.
That was among decided voters, yes. Actually, I think in Idea's research, Tisza was also in the lead of the total population, but these are all available, open poll results.
But that's not the only thing that's interesting. It's also interesting what's happening to the rest of the political parties in Hungary, and they are really, really disappearing. We are heading towards a two-party system, a quite clean two-party system.
According to most polls [if an election were to be held today], there would be a four-party parliament, so there would be Fidesz, Tisza, Our Homeland, the extreme right party, and the Democratic Coalition (DK). These [latter two] are the parties that might make it above the 5% parliamentary threshold. But even Our Homeland and the DK poll are [just] around this 5% threshold
But, the fact is that Fidesz has not been losing that much of its support, Fidesz is losing some support, … [but] very moderately, if at all.
[* It should be noted that polls by Századvég and Nézőpont, both government-linked institutes, continue to find Fidesz has a significant lead over the Tisza Party. Ed]
Two Summits in Budapest - The Greatest Diplomatic Achievement ever in Hungary?
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The other thing that I wanted to talk about is the European Political Community and EU Summit that we had on 7th and 8th of November.
You should be careful when listening to the governing party's interpretation of what happened, because Fidesz communicated this as if it were a major diplomatic achievement. Starting from Viktor Orbán's facebook page to the major pro-government news outlets, they were singing hymns that it was a major diplomatic achievement.
It's not really ... this is a question of fact. The European Political Community summit is held by the country that is holding the presidency of the council, and that is currently Hungary, so that's why we had this here.
I think the only interesting question about this was whether foreign heads of state and government decided to boycott the event or not, because this is an issue that came up many times.
First, a boycott of the European Union events held by the presidency held in Budapest was announced to be boycotted by a couple of heads of state and governments after Viktor Orbán's so-called 'Peace Mission' after Hungary took over the presidency [last July].
This time, the event that was quite questionable, Orbán's deed that was quite questionable, was his visit to Georgia after elections there. And we heard about rumours and plans, especially from some Nordic and Baltic countries, that as a response to Orban's visit to Georgia and congratulating the quite questionable re-elected Georgian government, so as a response to that, they were considering not coming, or at least not at the highest levels at these European Summits.
But eventually, they gave up on that. My understanding of their presence and the general presence of virtually every European leader at this event is Trump's victory on November 5th. We know that Ukraine President Zelensky decided to come after Trump won the elections, so I think European leaders felt that they had to show unity and this was not the time when they could allow Hungary to virtually hijack the European summit.
So .. I don't think it's particularly important to be honest, but there was a Budapest Declaration on new competitiveness that was issued after the meeting.
You know, these declarations have some meaning, it is important for the leaders to be able to issue a declaration after such a summit. It has 12 points on various issues affecting European competitiveness. Just as an example, the leaders were calling on the Commission to present a comprehensive strategy on deepening the single market by June, 2025.
There was also a point on working for a more common energy union, to have a fully integrated energy market.
These are important statements and very important goals, I'm not trying to belittle them, because they are important, but this was not a decision-making forum, it was an informal meeting of EU heads of states and government and no decision was made. And even if you read through the documents, at the bottom of it, there is I think the most important part, which is where all this is going to be financed from?
We have great ideas for European competitiveness, but where is the money? Because this is the key question. And, on that, the document says that we are committed to exploring and leveraging all and goals. We will explore the development of new instruments, which to me means that we don't know yet! This is the actual answer to the question: where is the money? We don't know yet.
We're going to try to find out how we can find new money for financing European level policies strengthening the EU's competitiveness. So, as a document, mapping out the major goals or major areas of interest for the future of the EU, I think it's interesting, but I would not overestimate the significance of the declaration.
And as for President Donald Trump part II & Hungary
And, my last point. The election of Donald Trump.
I'm sure you know that Viktor Orbán was celebrating Trump's victory, he's been a major supporter of Trump since 2015. He was the very first to endorse Trump when he started to run for the presidency, before the 2016 elections.
Moderator: When he was an outsider.
Yes, absolutely. I think Orbán likes him, because he likes to portray himself as an outsider, even though he has been in government for more than 14 years, he is an EU leader, he's been sitting in the EU council, still, Orbán likes to to think about himself and communicates about himself as an outsider, which is really interesting.
And I have to say that politically, as quite a smart move for him to be able to sell himself as the outsider, the freedom fighter of Hungary. And he saw that similar outsider in Donald Trump already in 2015. He has been a great supporter of him, and when he won the elections this year, Orbán was very, very happy and the whole government has been very happy since then.
The governing party's communication is that Trump's victory is going to have a direct, positive effect for Hungary.
There are two main arguments: one is that the diplomatic relations between the USA and Hungary have been at a low point since Biden came into power, and that under the first Trump administration everything was much better. Which is partly true, we can get back to the reasons, and they're communicating that there are going to be institutional changes under the second Trump administration.
For instance, they hope that this treaty on double taxation that has been suspended by the current US administration and has not been in place since 1 January this year, which makes the lives of entrepreneurs and businesses operating in the US and Hungary much easier, is going to be reinstated somehow.
I'm saying somehow because I haven't actually seen any tangible plan on that. I don't know what the Hungarian government is going to do in order to have this treaty back in place, but they're communicating that that's one area how the second Trump administration will have a positive effect on the HU economy.
And the second is that Trump is going to end the war in Ukraine, and once the war comes to an end, then the Hungarian economy will start flourishing, because now the biggest problem for the Hungarian economy, according to the Hungarian governing party is the war in Ukraine, so if Trump puts an end to that, then we're going to be super happy and finding everything back on track.
So, this is the government's communication. I have to say I disagree with many of these [theses].
I really can't see Trump's plan to stop the war immediately.
What we have seen during the campaign was coming not from Trump himself, but much more from JD Vance, his running mate and future vice-President, who presented a peace plan for Ukraine, I think it was in September … sorry, I'm not 100% sure about the date, but he publicly spoke about bringing peace to Ukraine in a way that would be very similar to what I believe is how the Kremlin imagines the war ending.
So, according to JD Vance's plan, Ukraine should cede the territories that are occupied by Russians to Russia, and then there can be an armistice, some sort of peace plan. Of course, he didn't go into details either, but the general approach is that fighting has to stop immediately, regardless of the consequences.
And that is very much in line with the Hungarian government's communication, which also calls for a ceasefire or armistice.
[But] Nobody really points out how a stop to the fighting should be achieved, or what should actually happen, but the people in Ukraine should just put their guns down and stop fighting, and then we can negotiate a long-term peace agreement.
But in either case, either in the plan outlined by Vance, and the plan outlined by the Hungarian government, this would likely be at least a partial victory for Russia, so it's something that would be unacceptable at this point for Ukraine, and there is no international support behind these plans.
So, I really can't see what the government's optimism in Trump's election from this perspective is based on.
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