Magyar Péter, leader of the opposition Tisza Party, publicly accused the ruling Fidesz party of fabricating signature collection data, escalating tensions just 50 days before parliamentary elections and raising fundamental questions about electoral transparency in Hungary.
The controversy erupted after government officials, including Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, declared Saturday evening that Fidesz had decisively won the petition signature collection phase. The Foundation for Fundamental Rights, aligned with the government, released figures purportedly from the National Election Office showing Fidesz collected 196,000 signatures compared to Tisza's 110,000.
Magyar challenged these claims Sunday morning, posting to social media that "everyone could see personally, in videos and photos, that crowds lined up at Tisza tables" while "Fidesz didn't dare appear in public spaces, or their paid activists stood alone."
The dispute took a decisive turn when Telex, an independent Hungarian news outlet, investigated the National Election Office data. According to their reporting, no numerical data exists regarding actual signature counts collected by individual parties or candidates.
The Election Office tracks only submission sheets, each containing up to eight signatures. Fidesz-KDNP submitted 24,523 sheets, while Tisza submitted 13,806 sheets. However, the actual number of valid signatures on those sheets remains unknown, as the NVI does not maintain such data during the collection phase.
"After the Fidesz headquarters confronted their enormous defeat, they thought they'd quickly make up some random number citing the NVI," Magyar wrote, reported by Hang.hu. "But they got caught even faster than usual."
Government representatives have not publicly responded to the specific allegation that the cited figures lack official foundation. The Prime Minister's Office and Fidesz communications director István Hollik did not respond to requests for comment on the discrepancy between their announced figures and available National Election Office data.
The incident has amplified broader concerns about election administration in Hungary. On social media, Hungarian citizens questioned whether electoral authorities could be trusted to accurately count votes in April if official signature data could be misrepresented during the petition phase.
"If they brazenly lied about this, citing the National Election Office, what guarantee do we have that the election itself won't be manipulated?" read the most upvoted post on Hungary's largest Reddit community, garnering over 1,100 upvotes and 270 comments within hours.
The European Union has long raised concerns about democratic standards and rule of law in Hungary under the Orbán government. The European Parliament voted in 2022 to declare that Hungary could no longer be considered a full democracy, citing concerns about electoral integrity, judicial independence, and media pluralism.
Opposition figures point to the signature collection controversy as evidence of systemic problems. Government supporters counter that opposition parties are attempting to undermine confidence in electoral institutions ahead of what polls suggest will be a competitive election.
In Hungary, as across the region, national sovereignty and European integration exist in constant tension. But the immediate question facing voters is more fundamental: whether the institutions responsible for administering elections can be trusted to provide accurate information about the democratic process itself.
The National Election Office has published guidelines confirming that precise signature counts are not tracked during the collection phase, only the number of submission sheets. Neither Fidesz nor the Foundation for Fundamental Rights has clarified the methodology behind their announced figures of 196,000 and 110,000 signatures.
With parliamentary elections scheduled for mid-April, the dispute over signature collection numbers represents the opening salvo in what promises to be an intensely contested campaign. Whether electoral institutions can maintain public confidence in the integrity of the process may prove as consequential as the vote itself.
