Executive Summary
- Political Capital and its partners monitored the Hungarian communication campaign conducted on webpages and social media pages between 12 February and 30 April 30, 2022 to understand the strategic communication and leading narratives used to mobilise Hungarian voters along domestic, and foreign policy issues at home and abroad.
Hungarian elections 2022 in Ukrainian Zakarpattia: no campaign and less than 6,000 votes – but with Russian disinformation
The main and official part of the 2022 Hungarian parliamentary election campaign coincided with the preparations and launch of Russia’s full-scale military invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.
The Hungarian electoral campaign was severely impacted by the war in Ukraine. The start of the political campaign was based on traditional narratives from Fidesz, mainly promoting the historic support they offered since 2010 to Transylvania, Fidesz’s financial support to families, subsidies for schools, and kindergartens.
Fidesz’s policies towards ethnic Hungarians will bring mandates – but not necessarily through mail-in votes from beyond the borders. Fidesz pursues a distinctive agenda when it comes to ethnic Hungarians in the neighboring countries. This agenda has a tradition, and Fidesz benefits as it increases votes coming from within Hungary.
The Hungarian Media Landscape is dominated by pro-FIDESZ narratives mainly due to its dependency on Budapest funds. In the last three years, the Transylvanian Media Space Association received a grant of 20 million euros from the Hungarian government. Through the support the association became by far the largest media trust in the Hungarian press in Transylvania. In the electoral campaign that officially started in February, we can see that the Transylvanian media space has significant coverage of FIDESZ and Viktor Orban’s electoral activity.