Hungary Announces Elections in April

Hungarian President János Áder announced the country’s parliamentary elections will take place on April 3rd, euobserver reports. 

This round of elections, the earliest allowed by law since the last elections in 2018, poses the greatest electoral challenge incumbent Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has faced since his Fidesz party won a parliamentary majority in 2010. Now, diverse opposition parties have banded together in an attempt to unseat Fidesz. 

Orbán had already chosen April 3rd for Hungarians to go to the polls to vote in a referendum on the country’s new controversial sex education law that limits the content about sexuality that can be shown to minors in schools and other public venues. The law has been widely criticized in Europe and internationally. 

Orbán made a similar move in 2016 when he held a referendum on EU refugee resettlement quotas. In that referendum, voters upheld his government’s position of rejecting refugee settlement quotas for EU countries.