The smell of the possibility of early elections is in the air. But it seems only in the air: while they talk about it within Fidesz, their political leaders say it is groundless. Even the socialists aren’t thinking about it seriously, although they are preparing for every option – daily Népszabadság reports.

Ferenc Gyurcsány wrote in his Facebook blog on Saturday afternoon: “Our information sources within Fidesz say that there will be early elections on March 18. Who knows if they are informing or misinforming us?  But they want to play games with us. And not least they think we are jerks. Oh, such worthless people!”
Gyurcsány writes that the new election law will be unquestionably disadvantageous for the opposition, which is why they shouldn’t participate in the parliamentary debate of this bill. But he goes further in his thoughts; he mentions the possibility of boycotting the next elections.
The speculation about having early elections in the spring is unfounded. It would be very difficult to push it through the Fidesz faction, a well-known Fidesz politician told Népszabadság. Another source thinks there could be some so called “lamentation” about the polls and the possibility of early elections even amongst Fidesz politicians. “But there is a specific rational reason that contradicts early elections in the spring: the vote on the new electoral system will be in December, but all the collateral laws regulating the process of the elections are not yet at the Parliament and are expected to be voted on in early March.” – a politician from the governing party draws our attention to a different perspective of this issue. The government could draw a caesura and open a clean slate. An argument against the scenario of early elections could be that by doing so Viktor Orbán would admit that his two years in government were a failure. And the crisis of the Eurozone couldn’t be an extenuating circumstance or a convincing cause of blame. On the other hand, the markets’ reactions to early elections wouldn’t be favourable because it would send investors the message of instability and uncertainty. “A change within the government, firing György Matolcsy minister for national economy would be a better message” – said a Fidesz politician.
Leading socialist politicians haven’t excluded the option of early elections in March, but they made clear that this was not the most probable option. On the one hand, this would prevent any serious discussions with the IMF, which would have a severe impact on the exchange rate of the Hungarian forint, and there is no such sign in next year’s budget. However, the two-third governing majority could solve this through a simple technical modification. Népszabadság reports though that the leaders of main opposition party MSZP made the necessary steps last Thursday to get prepared in case there would be early elections.
A right-wing columnist finds the recent guesswork about a possible early election groundless. He believes that Fidesz has no reason to call an early vote, as it can easily win in 2014. “Fidesz can only be defeated in the 2014 election if the party splits,” András Stumpf comments in weekly Heti Válasz in response to the speculation.
According to some analysts, including Gábor Török, Fidesz may soon start to contemplate the possibility of extending its mandate by calling an election in 2012. According to this line of thought, such a move would be a reasonable reaction to the constant decline in support for the governing party. The latest opinion polls by two polling agencies, Median and Tárki suggest that Fidesz has lost about half its supporters since the 2010 elections, and a record number of Hungarians think that the country is going in the wrong direction. Opposition parties, however, have failed to capitalise significantly on such a change in the public mood, so Fidesz maintains its massive lead.
Source: Népszabadság, Heti Válasz, Budapost.eu, torokgaborelemez.blog.hu