In contrast to Péter Magyar's bulbous visions, the truth is much more prosaic.
For days, the issue of early elections has been one of the defining topics of Hungarian public life, after the government allocated HUF 8.4 billion for parliamentary elections in the 2025 budget.
Although many people drew the conclusion from this that the government is preparing for an early election, the Government Information Center classified the rumor as a "junk political prank campaign".
Now the National Electoral Office (NVI) also responded to 444 regarding the matter, and they told the newspaper why this amount was set aside.
According to the NVI, the HUF 5.9 billion included in its budget refers to the operation of the election systems, and the HUF 8.4 billion to the preparation of the 2026 parliamentary election.
They said that the item of 5.6 billion can be considered permanent from year to year and will be financed from this
the central election IT expenses that are not directly related to the current general election, but which occur constantly, the operation of central, dedicated servers and client devices for election purposes provided by NVI, the continuous security and other updates of these systems, the renewal of advanced licenses, and the associated the provision of network services, as well as the operation of the election security operational center.
The answer also revealed that this also includes expenses for maintaining the central register, processing the election registration requests of Hungarians across the border, receiving and processing other election requests electronically, i.e. providing and further developing the election IT applications that ensure the maintenance of the central registers.
"This appropriation also provides coverage for the IT tasks related to the interim elections (local self-government representatives and mayors, nationality self-government representatives, and members of parliament) and local referendums," the NVI announced.
According to the NVI, the 8.4 billion is only the preparation appropriation for the given year related to the given general election, in this case, which also includes IT costs, but they are only related to the given general election. Allegedly, this includes, for example, the further development of software applications for counting postal votes, the release of tasks included in the law related to election trials, or the maintenance of the jobs of foreign representation election offices.
"2026" included in the NVI's 2025 budget. out of the original HUF 8.4 billion appropriation for the 2026 parliamentary election preparation group, the expected amount of IT expenses related to the 2026 parliamentary election will be HUF 6.6 billion
they announced. They added that this includes printing and postal costs, as well as costs related to the preparation of electoral bodies.
Cover photo: Attila Nagy, president of the National Elections Office (NVI)
Source: MTI/Lajos Soós
