A real dip in Fidesz support: Medián
Medián and other more reputable pollsters have been showing a slow but steady decline in the governing party’s popularity. One or two percent every month which is indeed not significant until one adds it up and it turns out Fidesz has lost about 10% of its support since the elections. That is a sizable number of voters, about 600,000 between June 2010 and February 2011. A brave political commentator, László Kéri, predicted that in the next few months another 400,000 will turn away from Fidesz. How he comes up with such a number I have no idea, but we know that people are disappointed. Viktor Orbán’s popularity is still over 50%, but since last May he has lost 15% of his admirers.
People are fed up with politics in general, and only 41% of the representative sample say that they would definitely vote if elections were held this Sunday. A few months after the elections low participation is the rule, but according to Medián it has never been that low in the month of January after an election. Just to give you an example, in 2003 that number was 68% and even in 2007 it was still 50%.
There is also a huge group of people who today have no idea for whom they would vote. Last June it was 25% of the sample; this month it is 35%. The drop of support for Fidesz that has been slow and steady suddenly became dramatic. In one month Fidesz lost 7% of its support in the voting-age population–that is, about half a million people. These people didn’t flock to MSZP, which still stands at only 12%. The number of those who categorically say that they wouldn’t vote for Fidesz has also grown to 35%. On the other hand, Attila Mesterházy cannot be very happy when he hears that in the case of MSZP that figure is 60%!
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