IFES Election Guide - Country Profile: Hungary

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Parliamentary
April 2014

Hungary
Republic of Hungary
Region: Europe

Description of government structure:

Chief of State: President János ÁDER
Head of Government: Prime Minister Viktor ORBAN
Assembly: Hungary has a unicameral National Assembly (Orszaggyules) with 386 seats.

Note: under a new electoral system introduced in 2011, the National Assembly will be reduced to 199 seats, of which 106 will be filled by plurality vote in single member districts. The remaining 93 seats will be allocated on a national list.

Description of electoral system:

The President is elected by the National Assembly to serve a 5-year term. *
The Prime Minister is elected by the National Assembly.**
In the National Assembly (Orszaggyules), 176 members are elected in single-member constituencies to serve 4-year terms, 152 members are elected through a party-list proportional representation system to serve 4-year terms and 58 members are allocated from a national compensatory list.***

* To be elected, the president must win two-thirds of legislative votes in the first two rounds or a simple majority in the third round

** On the recommendation of the president.

*** Every voter may cast two votes: one in her respective single-member district and one for a party list. Single-member district elections are two-round. In the first round, all candidates who receive more than 15 percent of the vote move on to the second round. For the first round in any given district to be valid, more than 50 percent of registered voters must participate in that district. In the second round, that number is only 25 percent. Party votes contribute to the election by proportional representation of members from 20 multi-member constituencies. The threshold in this tier is 5 percent nationwide. Finally, compensatory seats are allocated to parties in proportion to their sums of votes for non-winning candidates and party lists.