Status: 10/17/2021 9:56 PM
The Hungarian opposition elected a joint candidate for the spring parliamentary elections: Peter Markie Zay. He’s a political outsider and a conservative – and that could make Prime Minister Orban dangerous.
Conservative and non-partisan Peter Markyzai is expected to challenge right-wing nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban as an opposition candidate in the Hungarian parliamentary elections in the spring of 2022. In the opposition primaries, the 49-year-old was clearly ahead according to the results of the partial count of the evening Sunday.
This is the first time such a symbol has been placed in Hungary. Six previously divided opposition parties – from a left-leaning green to a right-wing conservative – are supposed to support the winner of the campaign against Orbán. With more than half of the votes counted, Markie Zay got 59.1% of the vote and his opponent, Clara Dobrev of the SPD DK, got 40.9%, the pre-election commission announced. He has already congratulated Dobrev and promised his full support in the parliamentary election campaign.
The united opposition to Orban
This is the first time since 2010 that the 58-year-old has faced a united opposition at the ballot box. According to surveys, both camps are in fact equal. Marki-Zay has announced that if it wins, it will repeal the controversial Orban laws and introduce the euro in Hungary. Experts consider Marche Zee to be a tough opponent for Urban, whose devout father of seven could address conservative voters in next year’s vote.
Marche Zee studied economics, electrical engineering, and history. From 2004 to 2009 he lived with his family in Canada and the USA. He only entered politics in 2018. At that time he also won – also surprisingly – the mayoral elections in Hodmezövasarhely. Until then, the place was considered a stronghold of the Urban Fides party.
Participation in the second round of the primaries reached a record high: 66,2016 voters voted in the six days as of Saturday evening. At the end of September, 638,811 citizens participated in the first round. This value has already exceeded the expectations of regulators. There were five top candidates to choose from at that time. In the first round, citizens also voted in 94 out of 106 constituencies for joint direct candidates for Parliament.