Hungarian Parliamentary Elections
AS OF 2026-08-30 · 50 CONTESTS · parliamentary, 12 April 2026 · WIKIPEDIA, NATIONAL ELECTORAL AUTHORITIES
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Every Hungarian parliamentary election from the Reform Diet of 1825 to April 2026: the county assemblies that argued serfdom away, fifty years of Dualism on a six per cent franchise, the Horthy decades, nine single-list ballots under the People's Front, and the electoral law that produced three two-thirds majorities and then handed 141 seats to somebody else.
Source: Wikipedia election articles · as of 2026-08-30
National Assembly seats
199
100 for a majority, 133 for two thirds
Elections since 1825
50
April 2026
141
Tisza seats on 53.2% of the list vote
Latest
2026
Tisza Party largest
The chronology
Every Hungarian parliamentary election, newest first, era by era. The nine ballots between 1949 and 1985 offered one list and are labelled as what they were.
The two-thirds years · 2014–2026
The 2011 electoral law halved the chamber to 199 seats, dropped the second round, and added the winner's surplus constituency votes to its list total. Fidesz won three consecutive two-thirds majorities under it. In April 2026 the same system delivered 141 seats to Péter Magyar's Tisza Party on 53% of the list vote, which is the first time it has worked for somebody else.
The third republic · 1990–2010
Free elections returned in March 1990 and immediately produced the pattern that held for twenty years: every governing party lost the next election. A mixed system of constituency seats, county lists and a national compensation list gave majorities to whoever came first, and power alternated between the Socialists and Fidesz at every cycle but one.
One list · 1949–1985
Nine elections in thirty-six years, none of them contests. Voters were handed a single list from the People's Front and asked to approve it; approval ran between 96 and 99% and turnout was reported above 94% every time. From 1966 a constituency could in principle field two candidates from the same front, which changed the seating plan and nothing else.
Between the armies · 1944–1947
The Provisional National Assembly of 1944 was assembled at public meetings in Soviet-held territory. The 1945 election that followed was the freest Hungary had ever held and was won outright by the Smallholders with 57%, which the Communists answered by carving the state up anyway. By 1947 the Communists were running the interior ministry and the count, and the election is remembered by the blue ballot papers that let their supporters vote in constituencies where they did not live.
The Horthy era · 1920–1939
Hungary emerged from war, revolution and Trianon as a kingdom without a king, governed by an admiral without a navy. Elections continued, on a franchise that was secret in Budapest and open in the countryside, and the government party won all six of them. The last, in 1939, brought the Arrow Cross into parliament with the third largest vote.
Dualism · 1861–1910
The Compromise of 1867 gave Hungary its own parliament inside the Habsburg monarchy, and the parliament spent fifty years arguing about the Compromise. A property and tax franchise kept the electorate to roughly six per cent of the population, voting outside the towns was open rather than secret, and the Liberal Party won every election but two. The one it lost, in 1905, produced a constitutional crisis the crown resolved by appointing a government the chamber had rejected.
The Reform Diets · 1825–1848
The Diet of Hungary met when the Habsburg emperor summoned it and was elected by the counties, which meant by the nobility. What the period lacks in franchise it makes up in consequence: these are the assemblies of Széchenyi and Kossuth, where the Hungarian language replaced Latin and serfdom was argued out of existence. The election of 1848 was the first held on anything resembling a modern register, and the revolution it belonged to was crushed within eighteen months.
The long arc in charts
Hover any point for the exact figure.
Turnout since 1920
Above 90% at every election of the one-party decades, which says more about how the state counted than about how Hungarians felt. Free-election turnout has run between 56% and 79%, and 2026 was the highest of them.
The largest party's share
The winning list share has sat between 40% and 55% at every free election since 1990, and the seat share it buys has ranged from a bare majority to two thirds.
Records & superlatives
Highest turnout
92.5%
1945, of the elections with a recorded figure
Lowest turnout
56.2%
1998
Highest vote share
57.0%
Independent Smallholders Party, 1945
Most seats won
328
Liberal Party, 1875
Two-thirds majorities
3
Fidesz in 2010, 2014 and 2018, each on about half the list vote
Years without a contest
37
1949 to 1985, nine ballots with one list on them
How Hungarian elections work
One round, two tiers, one winner's bonus
106 constituencies are decided by simple plurality in a single round, and 93 list seats are shared out nationally. The surplus votes of a candidate who wins a constituency are added to that party's list total, so coming first is rewarded twice. It is the reason a party can hold two thirds of the seats on half the vote.
The law that changed in 2011
The chamber was cut from 386 seats to 199, the second round was abolished, and constituency boundaries were redrawn. Every election since has run under it. Read the pre-2014 rows knowing the system beneath them is a different one.
The People's Front ballot
From 1949 to 1985 there was one list, presented by the People's Front, and voting meant approving it. Approval ran between 96 and 99%. Those rows are marked unfree, because the result of each was known before the polls opened.
Open voting outside the towns
Until 1938 the secret ballot applied only in the larger cities. In the counties voters declared their choice aloud in front of officials, which is the single most important fact about every Hungarian election result before the Second World War.