Republikon Institute

Although the frontlines are very clear when it comes to democracy, rule of law, European orientation – it is not the case in economic issues. Opposition parties have to remember this when creating a program and looking for alternatives instead of the regime of Fidesz: the Hungarian opposition is not right of left wing, rather eclectic – just like the government.

Republikon Institute proposes to introduce in Hungary primary elections. We believe that this instrument of narrowing the field of candidates helps also to enhance media attention and involve citizens, thus increase the trust in the democratic opposition.

Hungarian citizens can be more engaged and active in politics, though it is not certain, whether the Podemos-model as a whole can be simply copied. There are differences in the political culture as well as taste, not to mention that for many the radical rightist Jobbik is also an acceptable anti-regime alternative.

The controversial preventive videos were released by the police force of Pécs just 4 days before the activist movement kicked off. The videos contain, however, a multitude of errors and misconceptions.

On the day after the internet tax protests it is hard to tell whether they mean real burning point for Fidesz government or Hungarian politics in general.

The free movement of persons, goods, workers and capital within the European Union is one of the fundamental principles of the European Community. However, finding a job in another EU country can be difficult – the lacking recognition of skills and qualifications is one of the possible obstacles.

The results confirmed the predictions of Fidesz victory, saw a weakening of the still formidable extreme right and led to a restructuring of the Hungarian left. Unfortunately, no liberal MEPs were elected.

Using the official election results and its own reasearch Republikon Instutite analyzed the results of the Hungarian national elections in 2014. In this article the most important findings are summed up regarding the turnout and the impact of the different elements of the new election system.

Besides the general turnout and results of the elections Republikon Institute took a deeper look into the performance of each parties as well, with special regard to the changes since 2010, the parties different performance in different regions and the phenomenon of fragment of ballots.

Republikon Institute used data available from Eurobarometer to construct three categories among voting-age population in Europe: eurosceptics, who are dissatisfied with Europe; “soft eurooptimists”, who, in general, are comfortable with the depth of European integration, and “federalists”, who would give more power to Brussels. The Institute then looked at the ratio of these categories in different countries – with a special focus on Central Eastern Europe.