Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban claimed victory Sunday night in the country’s parliamentary election after campaigning on an anti-immigration platform.
He has transformed Fidesz from a liberal party formed in the 1980s to a right-wing populist outfit.
The right-wing opposition party Jobbik was second earlier with 20% of the vote so far.
Orban claimed victory in an address to Fidesz supporters in Budapest. He and Fidesz were expected to be swept back into power.
Polls had showed Fidesz far ahead of Jobbik, which has recently sought to moderate its policies and image to differentiate itself from Fidesz as that party moved to the right.
Fidesz, in a coalition with the smaller Christian Democratic People’s Party, has held a two-thirds supermajority in Parliament for the past eight years, allowing it to change the constitution without a referendum.
The coalition has passed a slew of laws tightening regulations on the media, central bank, constitutional court and nongovernmental organizations. European Union leaders have warned those laws would undermine the country’s democracy.
Orban, who is wary of the European Union, has accused it of overreach in Hungary’s affairs, particularly in its attempt to impose a quota system that would have obliged Hungary to settle refugees.
The Hungarian government has set up anti-immigration billboards across the country, though it has the third-lowest level of immigration of the EU’s 28 countries.
