Reasons for the failure of the opposition coalition in the 2022 Hungarian parliamentary elections: contemporary party politics and pre-electoral coalitions

Abstract

Almost one and a half years before the Hungarian National Assembly Elections scheduled for April 2022, six opposition parties announced the establishment of the pre-electoral coalition "United for Hungary." Due to promising public opinion polls and the cumulative results of these parties in the 2018 parliamentary elections, which accounted for around 46%, the opposition hoped that the coalition would provide a strong challenge to the long-standing Fidesz government, which had been in power since 2010. However, the opposition's performance significantly worsened (34.4%) compared to the previous elections and fell well below the predictions of opinion polls. This research aims to unravel this puzzle and answer the research question: "Why did the opposition coalition fail to win the 2022 Hungarian Parliamentary Elections?" To answer this question, 14 face-to-face interviews were conducted with the leaders of the coalition parties, the opposition's Prime Minister candidate, local journalists, analysts, and international observers. The research primarily focuses on the perspective of the opposition parties themselves regarding the main factors that contributed to their defeat. The analysis of the interviews revealed several commonly mentioned reasons for the defeat, which have been categorized into three groups: (1) the Opposition's Mistakes or Weaknesses, (2) the Strengths of Fidesz, and (3) Independent Factors. Among all the reasons in these groups, the three most influential factors turned out to be the weaknesses in the opposition's communication and campaign, an ineffective prime ministerial candidate, and the unlimited resources of Fidesz.