BUDAPEST, Oct 14 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Hungarian opposition won the race for the post of Budapest mayor and those of some major cities while the ruling party Fidesz won the majority of mayor posts of smaller cities, according to the results of the National Election Office (NVI).
The turnout was high for local elections, close to 50 percent, according to NVI.
When 81.59 percent of the votes were counted, the post of the Budapest mayor went to Gergely Karacsony, the candidate of the united parties of the opposition, with 50.62 percent of the votes. Istvan Tarlos, current mayor, got only 44.29 percent. Independent candidates got the rest.
Karacsony declared: “We took back Budapest!” in his speech following the congratulations of Tarlos.
The race in other major cities such as Szeged, Pecs or Miskolc were also won by the opposition.
“Budapest chose Gergely Karacsony today,” Tarlos declared. “I congratulate him and wish him luck,” he added.
“On the national level, the result is nice, but in Budapest, there is thinking to be done,” he told a news conference flanked by Prime Minister Viktor Orban. “Budapest made the decision to elect Gergely Karacsony today.”
The result is an upset for Orban’s ruling Fidesz party, which hasn’t suffered an electoral defeat since it came to power nine years ago.
Karacsony, who was backed by a number of opposition groups from across the political spectrum, called the win “historic.”
“I’d like to put the relationship between Budapest and the government on a new plane. We are readying not for war but for cooperative construction,” the 44-year-old center-left politician said. “Budapest will be green and free, we will bring it back to Europe.”
Opposition candidates also won mayoral races in 10 of the country’s 23 largest cities. That’s a significant shift since the last local elections in 2014, when opposition groups won just three mayoral contests.
The nationwide municipal polls were seen as a test for the opposition’s new strategy of banding together behind a single candidate against Fidesz.
“This election proves that opposition cooperation works, the opposition reached its best result in years with the new strategy,” political analyst Andras Biro-Nagy told Agence France-Presse news agency.
More than 8 million people were eligible to vote for over 3,000 mayors and more than 17,000 local council members in Sunday’s vote.
The election turnout was nearly 50%, one of the highest participation rates in local polls since Hungary’s return to democracy in 1990.
