European MEPs call for election observation mission to Hungary

A cross-party group of MEPs has called for a large-scale election observation mission to Hungary, citing fears about democratic standards.

Hungarians go to the polls on 3 April in parliamentary elections that will decide the fate of the incumbent prime minister, Viktor Orbán, whose last 12 years in office have seen tighter executive control over courts, a withering of independent media and widespread concerns about corruption and cronyism.

In a letter to the head of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, which checks electoral probity in 57 mostly European and central Asian states, the MEPs called for a full-scale election observation mission to Hungary.

“We come from five political groups and from 19 different countries. But we all share the concern that the elections might not be held to the highest democratic standards,” the letter to the ODIHR director, Matteo Mecacci, states.

The ODIHR, part of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, has begun a needs assessment of the mission it should send to Hungary. During Hungary’s 2018 elections it sent a limited mission, meaning it did not undertake systematic observation of voting, counting and tabulation of results. The Warsaw-based body, however, can choose to send a larger mission to carry out wider checks if it deems there is “limited confidence among election stakeholders in the election administration”.

After the 2018 vote, where Orbán’s Fidesz party won a two-thirds majority, the OSCE observers criticised “hostile and xenophobic” rhetoric, a campaign that “limited space for substantive debate” and where public television “clearly favoured the ruling coalition”, and the government’s use of public funds to tilt the election in its favour.

MEPs cited these issues and also raised the alarm about new voter registration rules, which they say make it easier for people to use fictitious addresses. “It is widely feared that [these rules] will be instrumentalised by the ruling party to increase its voter base in particularly contested regions,” the letter says.

Related: Outsider from the right backed by Hungary’s left to beat Orbán

One prominent election analyst, Daniel Hegedüs of the German Marshall fund, said earlier this month that the integrity of the 2022 contest would be worse than 2018 and 2014, elections he characterised as “free but not fair”. In April, Orbán will face a challenge from Péter Márki-Zay, a Conservative church-going father of seven, who has united six opposition parties behind his candidacy.

The letter has been signed mostly by MEPs from the Green, Social Democrat, centrist and radical left groups. A few signatories come from the centre-right European People’s party, which used to be Orbán’s political home. One notable EPP signatory is Danuta Hübner, a former EU commissioner for Poland. Several signatories are prominent in the Hungarian opposition, but support came from across the EU, including France, Germany, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Romania and Greece.

Orbán’s spokesperson, Zoltán Kovács, has dismissed warnings of a rigged election as cynical and absurd. “Voters will reelect [Orbán], I predict, because he has taken the country forward and delivered real results for Hungarians,” he wrote in a recent article on Euronews.