Summary

The Hungarian electoral system’s 2011 reform met several social, political and legal expectations. In spite of this, the new regulation has been criticised in the past decade. The majority of the objections have been made by opposition parties or civic groups that are critical of the government, based on political rather than professional aspects.
Not only is the Hungarian public sphere used regularly to undermine trust in the electoral system, but international media and organisations also often echo these charges. 62 members of the European Parliament called for a strict on-site monitoring of the Hungarian elections, and 20 anti-government Hungarian civic groups urged OSCE in a letter to deploy a full election observation mission to Hungary.
On this occasion, Nézőpont Institute collected the 20 most widespread criticisms in the 2018 OSCE report on Hungary to objectively analyse whether they are factual and still valid.
Half of the criticism in the report was already unfounded at the time when it was put forward. The reasoning behind these objections primarily followed the opposition’s rhetoric, for example with regards to the situation of civic groups, ruling party advertising, the public service media, media pluralism, media freedom, the media authority, or out-of-country voters.
Some objections in the report can be seen as outdated, as either the regulations have been modified or the situation has changed. For example, a tightening of the law has limited the opportunities of the so-called “business parties”. The possibility of errors when reviewing election disputes has been reduced. The long wait times and delays caused by absentee voting have become easier to prevent after the law was amended.

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