Hungary Opposition Decries Mail-In Ballots as Burnt Stash Found
Hungary Opposition Decries Mail-In Ballots as Burnt Stash Found
(Bloomberg) -- Hungary’s opposition demanded that all mail-in ballots be ignored in Sunday’s high-stakes general election after batches of them were reportedly found burned and dumped in a field in neighboring Romania.
The purported ballots were found near the city of Targu Mures, Romania, which has a large ethnic Hungarian community, local news website punctul.ro reported on Thursday. It also published a video showing what appeared to be ballots filled with votes for the opposition. Romanian police said they had launched an investigation after discovering unsealed envelopes containing ballots in a field.
The Hungarian opposition alliance of six political parties, which is running close behind Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party in polls, asked that “all mail-in ballots from abroad be eliminated,” according to a post on Facebook. Fidesz, for its part, alleged that the opposition had burned the ballots, without offering evidence.
The opposition has complained for years that mail-in ballots can be manipulated. The inclusion of mail-in ballots were part of several rounds of sweeping changes to the election system under Orban, including gerrymandering, that critics say have put his Fidesz party at an advantage over its opponents.
After his return to power in 2010, Orban gave Hungarians abroad the right to vote by mail but only to those who don’t have residency -- a rule that included almost half a million potential voters who’ve never lived in Hungary.
Hundreds of thousands of others -- mostly people who’ve emigrated and whom the opposition considers a major source of support -- can only cast ballots in person, whether at embassies or consulates or by returning to Hungary.
There are more than 456,000 voters eligible for mail-in ballots, according to Election Office data, representing about 5% of the total. In the last general election in 2018, Orban’s Fidesz party won 96% of mail-in ballots, compared with 49% of the overall vote.
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