Jobbik runs the most effective campaign in the country. Doubles its vote.

Money well spent?

At the first round of the 2010 Hungarian parliamentary elections Jobbik took 17% of the vote, to secure 26 seats in parliament.

The 842,306 who voted for the Movement for a Better Hungary, is double that of those who did so in the European elections in June of last year.

With over 95% of the results now having been received by the National Electoral Authority (OVB), the votes received by the four parties who will be entering parliament Jobbik, Fidesz, the MSZP and LMP can be listed:

1. FIDESZ-KDNP  -   53%  -  from  2,659,974 votes
2. MSZP  -  19%  -  from 972,119 votes
3. Jobbik  -  17%  -  from 842,306 votes
4. LMP  -  7%  -  from 373,957

In addition to which we can also, through the use of the independent campaign financing surveyor képmutatás.hu (chart above), also show the amount of money each political party spent on their campaigns. Again listing the four parties who will be entering the House of the Nation:

1. MSZP  who spent  HUF  652,590,000
2. Fidesz  who spent  HUF  484,899,000
3. Jobbik  who spent  HUF  150,759,000
4. LMP  who spent  HUF  103,992,000

(Yes that isn’t a typing error, the MSZP which during its tenure succeeded in virtually bankrupting the Republic of Hungary somehow managed to obtain over half a billion Forints with which to campaign. Surely this should be an international scandal? But given the expected behaviour of the international press, such an investigation will never happen.)

In other words we can calculate how much each party spent in order to receive each vote:

1. MSZP for each vote received, spent  HUF  671
2. LMP for each vote received, spent  HUF 278
3. Fidesz for each vote received, spent  HUF 182
4. Jobbik for each vote received, spent  HUF 178

Simply put, Jobbik therefore got the most value, even for the limited campaign funds at its disposal, and spent the lowest amount for each vote received.  It ran the most effective campaign.

It can only be wondered how the Movement for a Better Hungary would have fared if it had the kind of campaign resources open to its rivals Fidesz and the MSZP, both of whom overstepped the electoral spending threshold by several hundreds of millions. To say nothing of the fact that both parties are now under criminal investigation following violations of electoral law, such as the maintenance of secret voter databases; which regulations unambiguously make clear should strictly not be maintained by anybody.

Add to this the full two national television stations in the Fidesz camp: HírTV and ECHOtv; both of which are run by individuals who were keen to receive, and who will now be receiving, posts in a Fidesz government.

The below also illustrates how much airtime the prospective parties got on Hungarian television, when compared to each other, according to a study by Hungary’s National Broadcasting Commission (ORTT). The figures refer to how much speaking time politicians from each respective party got (bottom axis) on each individual TV channel (left axis).

Don’t bother trying to find Jobbik’s figure on the chart, at a mere 0.3% total proportion of TV time, it’s too small to see!