Parliamentary elections are to be held in Hungary on 12 April 2026. This parliamentary election will be the 10th since the resumption of free elections in 1990.
Politico Europe has described them as the EU's most important election of 2026. DW News has also described the election as a referendum over if the country will drift towards authoritarianism and Russia or liberal democracy and the EU.
On 3 April 2022, with 54.13% of the popular vote, FideszâÂÂKDNP received the highest vote share by any party or alliance since 1990. It won two-thirds of the seats for the fourth time. The United for Hungary alliance suffered a massive defeat and was shortly after dissolved; its members sat in separate political groups in the National Assembly. From other minor parties, only Our Homeland Movement reached the threshold for entry; the satirical Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog Party did not. Following the election, only the Democratic Coalition managed to achieve sustained double-digit poll results alongside Fidesz, but still lagged far behind the ruling parties.
The European Parliament views Hungary as a "hybrid regime of electoral autocracy" since 2022 and considers Hungary according to Article 7.1 of the Treaty on European Union in clear risk of a serious breach of the Treaty on European Union. In January 2024, a majority of MEPs voted for a resolution demanding that the Council of the European Union considers that Hungary be stripped of its EU voting rights under Article 7 of the Treaty.
On 2 February 2024, it was revealed that President Katalin Novák had granted a pardon in April 2023 to a criminal involved in a pedophilia case. The scandal resulted in Novák's resignation, and that of former justice minister Judit Varga, who had countersigned the pardon. Not long after, Varga's ex-husband Péter Magyar posted on Facebook that he would resign from all of his government-related positions, stating that the past few years had made him realize that the idea of a "national, sovereign, bourgeois Hungary" stated as the goal of Viktor Orbán's rule was in fact a "political product" serving to obscure massive corruption and transfers of wealth to those with the right connections.
On 15 March 2024, Magyar, despite initially refusing his participation in politics, held a rally attended by tens of thousands in Budapest at which he announced the formation of a new political party. According to polling conducted that month, around 15% of voters claimed they were "certain or highly likely" to vote for Magyar if he ran for office.
On 10 April 2024, Magyar announced his bid to run in both the European and Budapest Assembly elections with the then unknown Tisza Party (Respect and Freedom Party), which finished in second place with nearly 30% of votes, the highest number and percentage of votes by any non-Fidesz party since 2006, eventuating collapse for other opposition parties with it and a new situation in Hungarian politics. Following the midterm elections, the strengthening of the Tisza Party continued and according to the independent/opposition-aligned polls, by the end of the year it had become the most popular political party in Hungary, or at least a close competitor to Fidesz, thus overturning the continuous dominance of ruling parties that had lasted since the à Âszöd speech came to light.
The Tisza party selected 103 of its 106 future candidates for the election in a two-round primary late 2025 (following a call for candidates in 2024). The party put forward 3 nominees in each district (except the district of Magyar and 2 seats) and in the first round all Tisza Sziget members above the age of 16 could vote. Voting took place via a modified Borda count. In the second round, voting was opened also to all resident citizens above 18 who could vote for either of the two advancing candidates. Winners were announced on 28 November 2025.
Prior to the presidential pardon scandal, left-wing Democratic Coalition (DK) was considered as the strongest opposition party; its leading member Klára Dobrev even formed a one-party shadow cabinet in September 2022, which clearly indicated the role of the main challenger against the other opposition parties. Public opinion polls, however, in the two years after the 2022 parliamentary election measured DK's support at a maximum of 15âÂÂ20%. Except for the Momentum Movement and Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog Party, the opposition parties â Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP), Jobbik, Dialogue â The Greens' Party and LMP â Hungary's Green Party â usually did not reach the threshold according to public opinion polls. In contrast, the far-right Our Homeland Movement, which many consider a quasi-ally of Fidesz, has consistently been above the electoral threshold. The two years after the 2022 election were characterized by frozen party relations and political apathy, similar to much of the Orbán era, which consisted of a dominant ruling FideszâÂÂKDNP and far behind, medium and small opposition parties competing each other for a non-growing bloc of opposition voters. Moreover, the governance by decree introduced due to the permanent "state of emergency" due to the Covid and then the Russo-Ukrainian war has significantly eroded the political significance of parliament.
The appearance and rapid advance of the Tisza party completely rearranged the political party structure. A few days after Péter Magyar announced his intention to found a party on 15 March 2024, the not-yet-formed political formation was polled at 15%. As a result, the Democratic Coalition concluded an electoral alliance with MSZP and Dialogue on 28 March. They agreed that the three parties will run on a unified Social DemocratâÂÂGreen list, called DKâÂÂMSZPâÂÂDialogue Alliance, in the upcoming 2024 European Parliament and local elections. The European Parliament election on 9 June 2024 was a complete disaster for the parliamentary opposition parties; while Tisza came second with almost 30% of the vote and 7 seats, the DKâÂÂMSZPâÂÂDialogue Alliance received only 8 percent (2 MEPs). The remaining parties â Momentum Movement, Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog Party, Jobbik and LMP did not obtain a mandate. The Tisza's performance was characterized by the media as a challenge to the ruling Fidesz of Viktor Orbán. The parliamentary opposition was mostly able to retain its seats in the local elections because the newly organized Tisza did not participate in that election â with the exception of Budapest. Klára Dobrev dissolved her shadow cabinet on the next day. The DKâÂÂMSZPâÂÂDialogue Alliance also ceased to exist in October 2024. While Tisza gradually caught up with Fidesz during 2025, and then left it behind in the polls, the parliamentary opposition parties completely eroded.
In May 2025, former party leader András Fekete-Gyà Âr urged his party the Momentum Movement not to contest in the upcoming parliamentary election, claiming that it would only result in the dispersion of opposition votes. His proposal resulted in numerous statements and discussions in the political public in the upcoming weeks. In the next month, two opposition parties, the Everybody's Hungary People's Party (founded by former PM-candidate Péter Márki-Zay) and the Momentum Movement (first among the parliamentary opposition parties), decided not to run in the next election in the interest of government change. In January 2026, three opposition parties â Solution Movement, Second Reform Era Party and the parliamentary force LMP â Hungary's Green Party â announced within a week that they will not run in the parliamentary election. The LMP party congress declared that "we do not wish to hinder the change of government, so we are not setting up a list or nominating candidates". On 7 February 2026, another parliamentary force, Dialogue â The Greens' Party, announced their withdrawal from participation after the rapid failure of their new attempt called the Hungarian Humanists' Party. On 20 February, the Hungarian Socialist Party â which once governed Hungary between 1994âÂÂ1998 and 2002âÂÂ2010 and is the last party remaining from the era of the regime change, alongside Fidesz â withdrew from the election, saying that an electoral system that amounted to "legalised cheating" could only be overcome by uniting behind "the strongest opposition candidate" regardless of party.
On 17 December 2024, the National Assembly voted on changes to the constituencies. As a result, the number of electoral districts in Budapest decreased from 18 to 16, while in Pest County the number of districts increased from 12 to 14. Border changes in some parts of Csongrád-Csanád County and Fejér County also happened. The ruling FideszâÂÂKDNP made the decision citing changes in the results of latest census (2022), but according to the opposition, the real goal was to weaken their position in those, mainly capital districts, where they were previously elected directly. The changes have been accused of amounting to gerrymandering, with the opposition Tisza Party needing to win by around 3âÂÂ5 points in the national vote in order to get a majority in the Assembly.
The 199 members of the National Assembly will be elected by mixed-member majoritarian representation with two methods; 106 elected in single-member constituencies by first-past-the-post voting, while the other 93 elected from a single nationwide constituency, by modified proportional representation. The electoral threshold is set at 5% for single party lists, 10% for joint lists of two parties and 15% for joint lists of three or more parties. Since 2014, each of the Armenian, Bulgarian, Croatian, German, Greek, Polish, Romani, Romanian, Rusyn, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, and Ukrainian ethnic minorities can win one of the 93 party lists seats if they register as a specific list and reach a lowered quota of of the total of party list votes. Each minority is able to send a minority spokesman â without the rights of an MP â to the National Assembly, if the list does not reach this lowered quota. Fractional votes, calculated as all the votes of individual candidates not elected (but associated with a party list over the threshold), as well as surplus votes cast for successful candidates (margin of victory minus 1 vote), are added to the direct lists votes of the respective parties or alliances. Seats are then allocated using the D'Hondt method.
A national list can be submitted by a party that has an individual candidate in 71 constituencies, in at least 14 counties and Budapest.
A total of 35 independent candidates will contest the elections:
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The Hungarian government accused the Ukrainian government of interfering in the elections and the main opposition Péter Magyar's Tisza Party of trying to get Hungary involved in the Russo-Ukrainian war. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that he hoped that a certain person (presumed to be Orban) would not veto a European Union loan for Ukraine. Otherwise, Zelenskyy said, he would "simply give the address of that person to our Armed Forces â our guys can call him and speak to him in their own language." This comment was condemned by Magyar, the European Commission and President of the European Council António Costa. Viktor Orbán also received an endorsement from Donald Trump and Marco Rubio.
In response, during a 15 March demonstration in memory of the 1848 revolution, Magyar accused Orbán of "treason" and inviting Russian agents to interfere in the election to Fidesz advantage.
During the election, the Druzhba pipeline crisis happened. Hungary and Slovakia accused the Ukrainian authorities of deliberately delaying repairs for political reasons. Zelenskyy has said he would prefer not to repair the Druzhba oil pipeline, stating that "my position, which is shared with European leaders, is that I would not repair the pipeline."
The CPAC Hungary meeting had been connected to the campaign.
On 21 March 2026, The Washington Post reported that Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) proposed staging a false flag assassination attempt on Orbán in an attempt to improve his odds to win the election, according to an SVR internal report that was obtained and authenticated by a European intelligence service. On 26 March, Politico Europe reported that a Russian bot network had made social media posts promoting a narrative that Orbán would face an assassination attempt and presenting Ukraine and Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a threat to Orbán.
On 26 March, the documentary film The Price of the Vote was released in Hungary detailing a six-month investigation by independent filmmakers and reporters, which alleged that Fidesz was engaging in a campaign of mass voter intimidation in poor rural or small-town communities prior to the election that have been Fidesz strongholds since 2010. In the film, it was alleged that local Fidesz mayors in such communities offer cash, work, firewood, transport to polling stations, access to medicine, and synthetic drugs in exchange for "correct" votes. In the film, it was also stated that an opposition candidate had dropped his bid to office after a child protection office in a Fidesz-ran area allegedly threatened to take his children into care.
The following graph presents the average of all polls.
The following two graphs present only the polls that are government-aligned, or independent/opposition-aligned, respectively. <div style="text-align:center;"> </div>