Parliamentary elections were held in Hungary on 6 April 2014. This parliamentary election was the 7th since the 1990 first multi-party election. The result was a victory for the Fidesz–KDNP alliance, preserving its two-thirds majority, with Viktor Orbán remaining Prime Minister.

It was the first election under the new Constitution of Hungary which came into force on 1 January 2012. The new electoral law also entered into force that day. For the first time since Hungary's transition to democracy, the election had a single round. The voters elected 199 MPs instead of the previous 386 lawmakers.Az országgyűlési képviselők választásáról szóló 2011. évi CCIII. törvény. In.: Magyar Közlöny. 2011. évi, 165. sz., 41095-41099. p.

Background In the 2010 parliamentary elections Fidesz-KDNP won a landslide victory, with Viktor Orbán being elected prime minister. As a result of this election, his government was able to alter the National Constitution, as he garnered a two-thirds majority. The government was able to write a constitutional article that favored traditional marriages, as well as one that lowered the number of MPs elected from 386 to 199.

Orbán and his government remained relatively popular in the months leading to the election. This was largely because of high GDP growth, increased industrial output, and a growth in the tourism sector.

New constitution and electoral law In 2010 a new government led by Fidesz–KDNP initiated a drafting process for a new constitution."Hungary's new constitution drafted by next March, says Fidesz official" , politics.hu, 2 August 2010; accessed 18 August 2010 "Bihari szerint mindig lehet jobb" ("According to Bihari, One May Always Do Better"), FN.hu, 7 August 2010; accessed 18 August 2010 On 18 April 2011, parliament approved the constitution on a 262–44 vote, with Fidesz and their Christian Democrat coalition partners in favor and Jobbik opposed. The Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) and Politics Can Be Different (LMP), citing the ruling party's unwillingness to compromise on issues and their inability to change the outcome, boycotted both the drafting process and the vote.Zoltán Simon, "Hungary First to Write a Constitution on IPad, Lawmaker Says", Bloomberg, 4 March 2011; accessed 25 April 2011"Hungary's parliament passes controversial new constitution", Deutsche Welle, 18 April 2011; accessed 25 April 2011 On 25 April, President Pál Schmitt signed the document into law, and it entered into force on the first day of 2012."Hungarian president signs new constitution despite human rights concerns", Deutsche Welle, 25 April 2011; accessed 25 April 2011 The enactment came halfway through Hungary's six-month Presidency of the Council of the European Union.Judy Dempsey, "Hungarian Parliament Approves New Constitution", The New York Times, 18 April 2011; accessed 25 April 2011

A new electoral law was also passed on 23 December 2011. The Fidesz and its coalition partner Christian Democratic People's Party (KDNP) unilaterally approved the new bill, using their two-thirds majority, ignoring the left-wing opposition's (MSZP and LMP) protests, while Jobbik voted against it. The NGO Political Capital noted in its analysis that the newly-adopted law "shifts the election system towards the majoritarian principle", which may be the cause of possible future "disproportional" outcomes in favour of individual parliamentary seats, resulting an emergence of voting method like first-past-the-post voting (FPTP). Nevertheless, Political Capital also emphasized that this tendency "however [can] not be interpreted as an injury to democracy."

Voter registration plan On 26 November 2012, Fidesz used its supermajority to pass legislation revising eligibility for voting. Accordingly, the citizens, who had to right to vote, should have been involved in a pre-registration process no later than 15 days before polling day "in order to spare politically indifferent citizens from the election campaign", as Fidesz officials said. According to critics, this process would have made it harder to vote the party out of power, while also threatened free suffrage with the determination of the time limit.Marton Dornbach, Open Access Archivangelism, 30 November 2012 http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/964-Beyond-the-Problem-of-Access-Democracy-Closing-in-Hungary.html Four members of the Democratic Coalition (DK), including its leader, former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány, had participated in a week-long hunger strike, protesting against the proposed voter registration plan, while President János Áder, who took the office after the resignation of Schmitt and himself was also a Fidesz member, sent the bill to the Constitutional Court.

On 3 January 2013, the Court ruled that the law curtailed voting rights to an "unjustifiable degree", due to the fact that the requirement for voters to register prior to going to the polls applies to every voter. The court also argued the limitation of campaign advertisings into the public broadcasting (Magyar Televízió and its partners), the proposed bans of political advertisements on cinemas during the campaign as well as prohibition of opinion polls in the last six days of the campaign "threatens" the freedom of speech in Hungary, in addition to its unconstitutional nature. After the court's decision the head of the Fidesz parliamentary group, Antal Rogán, announced his party "would drop the proposal" and they will not introduce it for the 2014 parliamentary election, despite the fact that some party members had considered just before the court's ruling that is possible that constitutional amendments can take place in order to pass the bill.

Party splits after 2010 election Party affiliation in the National Assembly Affiliation Members 14 May 2010 5 May 2014 227 223 59 47 47 43 36 34 16 7 – 10 – 8   Independent 1 9 Total number of seats386381

After the 2010 local elections, held on 3 October, Katalin Szili, former Speaker of the National Assembly founded the Social Union party and became its first chairperson. As a result, she quit the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) and the party's parliamentary group, continuing her work as a formally independent MP.Szili Katalin kilépett az MSZP-frakcióból In October 2011, a group of members of the MSZP around former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány left the party and founded the Democratic Coalition (DK) after one year of tension and disagreement. Ten members of the parliament, including Gyurcsány, also left the MSZP parliamentary group and became independent MPs. Gyurcsány said the cause of secession was that the MSZP "had failed in its efforts to transform itself". His former Socialist colleagues strongly condemned his step, as Gyurcsány signed a statement not to quit the party, swearing allegiance to the new party leadership just one week before leaving. At the introduction of his new movement, Gyurcsány called the new constitution as "illegitimate", and charged that all branches of power such as the Constitutional Court, Chief Prosecutor Péter Polt and other units of the judicial system "exclusively serve Viktor Orbán".

Since its establishment and 2010 national election, LMP was kept under pressure (for instance, on the occasion of by-elections) by the Hungarian Socialist Party to achieve some kind of electoral compromise and cooperation against Viktor Orbán's government. The leadership of the LMP positioned the party to the centre, and, as a newcomer, rejected both Fidesz and MSZP's politics. Prominent party member András Schiffer also criticized the previous Socialist cabinets, blaming Gyurcsány's "disastrous governance" for Fidesz winning a two-thirds majority in 2010. However prominent politicians in LMP were divided on the issue of cooperation. During the party's congress in November 2012, LMP decided not to join Together 2014, the planned electoral alliance of opposition parties and movements led by Gordon Bajnai. As a result, Benedek Jávor, a proponent of the agreement, resigned from his position of parliamentary group leader. Jávor and his supporters (including Tímea Szabó and Gergely Karácsony) founded a platform within the party, called "Dialogue for Hungary" on 26 November 2012. The platform argued in favour of conclusion of an electoral agreement with Bajnai's movement in order to replace "Orbán's regime". In January 2013, the LMP's congress rejected again the electoral cooperation with other opposition parties, including Together 2014. As a result, members of the party's "Dialogue for Hungary" platform left LMP to form a new political organization. Benedek Jávor announced the eight leaving MPs would not resign from their parliamentary seats, while seven parliamentarians (Schiffer's supporters) remained in the party. The leaving MPs founded the Dialogue for Hungary as an officially registered party in March 2013. On 8 March 2013, the PM established an electoral coalition with the Together, which was formed as a political party on that day.

In January 2013, two independent MPs who were elected from the Jobbik's national list but were expelled or resigned from the party earlier (Zsolt Endrésik and Ernő Rozgonyi) announced that they would henceforth represent the Hungarian Justice and Life Party (MIÉP) in the National Assembly. MIÉP had parliamentary representation the last time in 2002.

Opposition cooperation negotiations Gordon Bajnai, who served as Prime Minister between 2009 and 2010, preceding Orbán, announced his return to politics on 23 October 2012, during the anti-government demonstration of the One Million for Press Freedom (Milla) non-governmental organization. On the protest, he called for an anti-Orbán coalition so as to form a supermajority in Parliament with the help of which the changes done by Orbán's ruling party, Fidesz could be undone.

In his speech, Bajnai repeatedly used a variant of the term ("We may fail on our own, but together, we shall prove victorious!"),Gordon Bajnai's speech as published on the home page of his organization when he proclaimed his support for such a "cooperation between hopeful left-wingers, disappointed rightwingers, politically abandoned free-thinkers and committed Greens" that his organization along with two other civilian body named Together 2014 as a reference to the date of the next general elections in Hungary.BBC News - Mass rallies mark 1956 Hungary uprising In December 2012, Bajnai announced that he intends to become a Member of Parliament in the 2014 national election. Medián polled 22 then 16 percent for the first time to the Together movement among the "certain" voters in their two November surveys. Several scholars criticized the Medián's questioning method which was different from previous ones, suspecting a political intent behind the surveys.

According to plans, Together 2014 would have been an umbrella organization of centre-left parties, similar to the Olive Tree in Italy which established against Silvio Berlusconi's right-wing coalition in 1995. However LMP had rejected the cooperation in November 2012Az LMP nemet mondott Bajnaiéknak – Index, 2012-11-18 and January 2013,Szétszakadt az LMP – Index, 2013-01-27 and the Socialists led by Attila Mesterházy gradually took over the initiative. Consequently, the Together movement transformed itself into party on 8 March 2013, as only parties could take part in the election according to the rules.Párttá alakult az Együtt 2014 - közismert arcok a vezetőségben – Híradó.hu, 2013-03-08 On the same day, the Dialogue for Hungary, which was founded by deserters from the LMP, has established an electoral coalition with the Together.

2013 agreement