As the political scene moves on from a largely lethargic summer to a more active autumn, the political agenda will be dominated by issues linked to next year’s election campaign. Some issues have a direct bearing on the election, such as the struggle of MSZP and E14 to come up with a workable model of uniting the left-wing opposition against Fidesz...

Fidesz has made no secret of its growing dislike of the European Union and especially its representatives. Viviane Reding is only the most recent high profile target in a long series of attacks on the EU and some of its leading politicians.

The problem of campaign financing has dogged Hungarian democracy for two decades. Fidesz' planned reforms will hardly solve any of the problems. Instead, to further the governing parties' edge in 2014, they will create new ones.

With the agreement between Gordon Bajnai and Attila Mesterházy, the left is finally making genuine advances towards an electoral alliance for 2014. But many key issues remain unresolved and there are numerous crucial details that might lead to conflicts down the road.

It seemed unlikely a few months ago, but Fidesz' star is on the rise. Already towards the end of last year it had managed to halt its steady decline in the polls, and since January it has been expanding its base while the opposition is apparently struggling. This is unsurprising, since Fidesz is resorting to tried and tested methods of financial po...

Hungary's new constitutional regime is proving far less stable than its creators had promised. Even before it entered into effect last January, the governing parties had added a number of provisions to the Fundamental Law, some of which the Constitutional Court quashed on formal grounds.

Fidesz is experiencing a slight tailwind going into 2013, reinforcing an already relatively strong position. After the Constitutional Court scuttled its main strategy for keeping the biggest risk factor, disaffected voters, at home during the election, however, the strategic choices available to the governing party for the remainder of its term are...

2012 has not brought a massive shift in the political fortunes of the key Hungarian political players, but even the slight changes reveal a dynamic that will cause the governing party, Fidesz, some headaches. Still, despite significant troubles Fidesz remains in a far stronger position for 2014 than MSZP was during the same period of its most recen...

Another senior governing party politician is embroiled in a plagiarism scandal, and the details of the affair look very similar to the imbroglio that ultimately brought down former President Pál Schmitt.

The much awaited new Act on Electoral Procedures has been finally adopted, and from new rules on voter registration all the way to peculiar campaign advertisement regulations, it contains all the controversial elements that critics have lambasted for months.