As Hungary prepares for a new political landscape following the historic election result, young people are looking forward to a period of hope.
UL student Anna Molnar, who is a native of Budapest, expressed gratitude concerning the election result.
The election took place on Sunday, 12 April, and saw Viktor Orbán defeated, after a 16-year term as Prime Minister.
He is being succeeded by Peter Magyar and the Tisza Party, who obtained two-thirds of the vote. Anna, who studies journalism, explains how this, in itself, is significant.
“His party have the overall majority in the Parliament. Orbán had the overall majority for two terms, which means that he could rewrite the Constitution. He could make laws, and decrees. There was really no one stopping him.”
The Tisza party will likely not be able to completely reverse Orbán’s legislation, at least immediately.
Anna spoke openly to the Limerick Voice about her experience as a Hungarian voter. Her perspective gives an insight to how Hungary’s youth feels about Magyar’s historic win.
“We have hope finally,” she says.
It was stressful, she explains, for Hungarians leading up to the election. The country was enveloped in uncertainty as to whether or not the tides would turn.
“This campaign was very hard on all of us Hungarians. Three or four days leading up to the election, I was having nightmares about it every night.”
Molnar is not alone in these feelings, as she shares that back home, her family and friends are joyous with Magyar’s victory.
Voting looked somewhat different for Anna this year. She is on Erasmus and had to travel to Dublin in order to send in her ballot.
“I gathered up all of the Hungarians I know here from this university and we got a very early bus to Dublin,” she said.
Throughout all of the chaos and anxiety, she kept hope, in the end, it felt “like something I can be proud of.”
Hungarians are not out of the woods just yet, with Fidesz supporters turning hostile in the wake of the election.
“Tensions are, from what I’ve heard from my friends, running high in Budapest right now. There have been multiple reports of physical altercations associated with the supporters of the Fidesz party.”
The Tisza Party, by the latest data, earned 52.1% of the votes in this historic election. A record-breaking 79.5% of voters turned out, according to the National Election Commission.
The election will go down as a historical event for Hungary and will have big impacts on not just its people, but on the whole world.