The 2014 Budapest Assembly election was held on 12 October 2014, concurring with other local elections in Hungary. Voters elected the Mayor of Budapest, and the mayors of the 23 districts directly, while 9 seats in the assembly were distributed proportionally, taking into account votes cast for losing district mayoral candidates. This was the first election held under these rules, previously all seats (except for the Mayor) were elected with a party-list method.

Background Regarding the Budapest Assembly election, the Fidesz-dominated National Assembly amended the electoral law in June 2014 after an announcement by Fidesz politicians Lajos Kósa and Antal Rogán, half a year before the local elections took place. The amendment, according to analysts, was formed according to the current interests of the ruling party, since it forced cooperation between rival opposition parties (MSZP, DK and Together–PM) in order to win district mayoral positions (and thus Budapest Assembly seats). Only parties with at least 12 mayoral candidates could submit a compensation list. According to the Political Capital analysis think tank, this meant that the three largest opposition parties would have had to give up 7 districts, where all three of them run their own underdog candidate against the plausible Fidesz winner, while in the remaining 16 districts they cooperate and distribute among themselves in a ratio of 5–5–6. The Political Capital and the opposition parties criticized the Fidesz government, for amending the electoral law according to the current political situation months before the election, thereby reducing legal certainty and violating the ruling party's own adopted Constitution.

The final result of the election (see below) finally justified the criticism. Index.hu calculated that under the old electoral system (party-list proportional rules) the Fidesz would have had only 16 mandates (15 + the mayor) instead of the 20 it won, therefore, the government party majority would not have been behind Mayor István Tarlós that way in the 33-member General Assembly of Budapest.

Mayor

Incumbent Mayor István Tarlós was reelected with 49.06% of the votes.

District mayors

District Elected mayor Party Number of votes for winner I. Gábor Tamás Nagy Fidesz–KDNP 5 914 II. Zsolt Láng Fidesz–KDNP 18 733 III. Balázs Bús Fidesz–KDNP 23 615 IV. Zsolt Wintermantel Fidesz–KDNP 18 276 V. Péter Szentgyörgyvölgyi Fidesz–KDNP 5 621 VI. Zsófia Hassay Fidesz–KDNP 5 686 VII. Zsolt Vattamány Fidesz–KDNP 7 089 VIII. Máté Kocsis Fidesz–KDNP 10 674 IX. János Bácskai Fidesz–KDNP 7 954 X. Róbert Kovács Fidesz–KDNP 10 585 XI. Tamás Hoffmann Fidesz–KDNP 25 777 XII. Zoltán Pokorni Fidesz–KDNP 13 893 XIII. József Tóth MSZP 28 140 XIV. Gergely Karácsony Együtt–PM 18 126 XV. László Hajdu DK 11 294 XVI. Péter Kovács Fidesz–KDNP 16 064 XVII. Levente Riz Fidesz–KDNP 18 887 XVIII. Attila Ughy Fidesz–KDNP 15 202 XIX. Péter Gajda MSZP 13 858 XX. Ákos Szabados MSZP–DK–Együtt–PM 10 564 XXI. Lénárd Borbély Fidesz–KDNP 12 158 XXII. Ferenc Karsay Fidesz–KDNP 8 964 XXIII. Ferenc Geiger Independent 3 061

Distribution of compensation seats

Compensation seats were distributed using the D'Hondt method.

Party Votes for losing candidates Additional seats MSZP 66 131 3 Fidesz–KDNP 52 781 2 Jobbik 40 590 1 DK 38 624 1 Együtt–PM 38 380 1 LMP 32 059 1

Notes

References