The vast majority of active Hungarian voters, 58 percent, want Viktor Orbán, who is holding an annual review on Saturday, to be prime minister, the Center for Fundamental Rights told MTI on Saturday, referring to a poll summarizing the data of the past 12 weeks.
In their statement, the analysts emphasized that the popularity of the incumbent prime minister was consistently above 50 percent in the last 12 weeks, while the support of his "left-wing challenger", Péter Márki-Zay, was significantly lower at the beginning of the campaign period.
At the beginning of February, only 24 percent of active voters said they wanted Péter Márki-Zay as prime minister, which is the second worst figure since November 2021, they explained.
The Center for Fundamental Rights underlined that the research trends show that the respondents said that they wanted Viktor Orbán as prime minister in a proportion exceeding the absolute majority.
"The popularity of the prime minister, who has been in office since 2010, remains unbroken: in the past 12 weeks, the percentage of active respondents who supported him ranged from 52 to 61 percent - now it is 58 percent," the announcement reads.
They pointed out that the popularity of "Péter Márki-Zay, who judges the full support of Ferenc Gyurcsány based on his year evaluation", on the other hand, decreased in the last data collection: the left-wing prime minister candidate was supported by only 24 percent of active voters in the fourth week of 2022, that is, less than a quarter of them would like to see him in the position of prime minister .
The national sympathy index of the mayor of Hódmezővásárhely has been low week after week since the beginning of the surveys, the Center for Fundamental Rights announced.
It was emphasized that Péter Márki-Zay's support reached its lowest point near the end of last year: then 22 percent said they wanted him as prime minister, which was only able to improve by 2 percent.
The reason why Péter Márki-Zay's lagging behind can still be so significant is because "week after week he singles out a specific social group: he has already called rural people ignorant, mocked pensioners or called those who support the child protection law stupid," the Center for Fundamental Rights said.
They added that Péter Márki-Zay "also previously criticized the reduction in utilities, the minimum wage, the 13th month's pension and the official price cap on basic foodstuffs".
The public opinion polls of the Fundamental Rights Center were conducted between November 15, 2021 and February 9, 2022, using the CATI method. The samples of 1,000 people each are representative of the population older than 18 years.
MTI
Photo: magyarnemzet.hu
