By Judith Langowski and Krisztina Fenyo
BUDAPEST, April 1 (Reuters) - Hungary’s far-right Our Homeland party could become kingmaker after an April 12 election, as two opinion polls on Wednesday showed it is the only small party likely to win enough votes to enter parliament alongside the two main parties.
Nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban is trying to extend his 16-year hold on power but the centre-right Tisza party, led by former government insider Peter Magyar, leads Orban’s Fidesz party in independent polls.
Surveys published by independent pollsters 21 Research Centre and Zavecz Research showed that Our Homeland (Mi Hazank) is the only party besides Tisza and Fidesz with a chance of winning the 5% of votes required to enter parliament.
21 Research Centre put support for Our Homeland at 5% among decided voters and Zavecz put it at 4%.
Our Homeland, which won 6.7% in a European Parliament election in 2024, is part of the far-right Europe of Sovereign Nations group, which includes Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland.
Our Homeland campaigns on an anti-European Union, anti-migration and anti-vaccination platform and says it will fight corruption and crime.
Laszlo Toroczkai, the 48-year-old leader of Our Homeland, rejects being categorized as far-right and says he considers his party “sovereignist”, as opposed to globalist forces.
Our Homeland attracts openly antisemitic and anti-Roma voters and should certainly be seen as a far-right party, said Robert Laszlo, an election expert at think tank Political Capital, though he said they were a minority in the party.
He said Our Homeland had also attracted moderate voters through conspiracy theories related to vaccines during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“It also represents ordinary people in rural areas who feel that none of the larger parties represents them,” he told Reuters.
Toroczkai has ruled out joining a coalition with Fidesz or Tisza, telling Reuters during a campaign event: “My goal is that Mi Hazank gets in a position where neither Fidesz nor Tisza…has absolute power.”
But political analysts have suggested Our Homeland might support a minority Fidesz government informally from the opposition if required for Orban to be able to govern.
(Writing by Anita Komuves, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
